Hi Y'all,

I've been lurking here for a couple of months now and have gleaned some excellent insights on how to (or not to) use MS Streets & Trips 2009.

Now that I've planned and taken a few trips, I've noticed a number of road changes that have yet to be represented in the included map data. For example, there's an extension to a road near my house which has been open for nearly two years, but the map data hasn't caught up, and there are two undocumented new roads that I traversed during a recent trip.

Can one create an "overland" route where S&T thinks there's no road? I'm not gonna be doing any off-roading (if I were, I'd get something from Lowrance, etc.). FWIW, I've searched both the S&T Help and here using multiple word combinations ("offroad," "undocumented," "unmapped," and a few others) and haven't found what I'm looking for.

Thanks in advance,
Shawn

Congratulations on your first post. We look forward to hearing more from you.

To my knowledge, S&T maps are not user-extensible, and this is true of Mappoint as well. Delorme Street Atlas does allow you to "draw routable roads" (with limitations).

Your best shot is to contribute to the master database. The bulk of US map data in S&T is supplied by Navteq, so you can check Navteq Mapreporter (Redirecting to the NAVTEQ Map Reporter homepage). If this is also incorrect, then you can report corrections. Turnaround time will depend on your location. In central Jersey, I get about 3-month turnaround on my road and address reports, and my POI reports have all been totally ignored.

If the Mapreporter data is correct, then it should make it into the next version of S&T (or the one after that). The lag is 9-21 months depending on whether you make the cutoff. For example, S&T 2009 was released in August 2008, and the data is current as of Q4 2007. So anything that just barely missed the Q4 deadline will not appear until S&T 2010 is released sometime this summer or fall.

Thanks for the info, taoyue!

Taoyue, I'm curious, do you get paid for contributing to their sellable product?

No, neither Navteq nor Tele Atlas pays you for submitting corrections.

I suspect the value of any one correction is so low, when spread over all the corrections made in a year, that it would be negligible. For example, Navteq sends two-person data teams around the country. They probably make a correction every minute (maybe more in urban areas). Divide their salary over the number of corrections that they make. Would 10 cents per correction, or even a dollar per correction, really motivate people?

At least for me, the motivation is simply a distaste for bad databases, combined with a desire to see my area properly mapped. It even has some small benefit for me, since it hopefully means that I won't run into the same error again in the future.

I have over 200 users importing pushpins into Microsoft Streets and Trips daily. I have started to over come the missing street issue by some programming:

1) Add a pushpin on the map for each street that is missing.
2) Save the map and convert it to CSV using the free POI tool I downloaded from this site.
3) I feed my list of addresses to be imported through a VBA (Excel) script that looks at street name and checks if its in the CSV file. If it is in the CSV file it adds the GPS coordinates from the csv file and it is mapped to that location.

Please find attached two formats of data, on is data that exist on Streets and Trips and the other is data where the streets dont exist so we add GPS coordinates.

Attached Images

Street exists.JPG (23.1 KB)

street doesnt exist.jpg (12.0 KB)

Thanks for the input, icdoo. It seems, though, that you're adding POIs off streets -- what exactly is this accomplishing? Also, what do you mean by "the free POI tool I downloaded from this site," and what VBA script are you using?

Thanks,
Shawn

Well, I need to map pins and if I can at least get them to where the street should be it is usually close enough. I add pins on a map where all the missing streets are....I then save that map and use the POI CONVERTER http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/194-list-free-software-helpful-microsoft-streets-trips-users to make it a CSV file. I export data from our database and then my script compares the addresses in the database data to the CSV file If an address exisits in my CSV file I add the GPS coordinates to the file I am going to import into S&T. When I finally import all the data in, the ones that are not in the CSV file will be mapped by address the other will be mapped by GPS coordinate. It's not perfect but it works for us.
My script is custom to our data but if you had data you wanted to import I could probably throw something together for you. I have 200 people currently doing this.

Gotcha, icdoo! In this case, your useful technique wouldn't work for my purpose, as I was looking for a way to add a road so that the route could be planned across it.

Ya, you are out of luck. I wish Streets & Trips had that feature....but then we would never buy 2010

Shawn, I have noticed that when one of my stops isn't located, sometimes S&T will place a pushpin in the center of a zipcode. A couple of times, I've been following my route and come to find this problem, which I now don't get due to the developed distrust for S&T's accuracy. My point is, it draws a route from the nearest road to the push pin. If you know the route you are going to take, but the streets, or back roads, aren't on there, could you simply make a series of push pins following your known route?

Thanks for that suggestion, tomrod -- I'll try that sometime and report back (probably not in the next month or so, though).

<edit>Post moved here from different location</edit>

Is there a way to draw in streets in an area that doesn't have any addresses? Craig County Virginia is not on the 2011 Streets & Trips. Does anyone know if Craig County Virginia will be in Streets & Trips 2012.

I checked the latest maps on Garmin's products as they use the same supplier (NavTeq). I don't know what Craig County entails but looked at New Castle and its surroundings. It appears that street names for that area were added last year so there is a good possibility they will be in S&T 2012.

Terry

Attached Images

Craig County S&T.jpg (147.1 KB)

Craig County G2012.4.jpg (189.8 KB)

Thanks for the fast response to my question. I have a Garmin GPS device and New Castle/Craig County has been on it for about 1 1/2 years. It surprised me that it wasn't on 2011 Streets & Trips. I just purchased Delorme Street Atlas 2012 and New Castle/Craig County is NOT on it, most disappointing. Hopefully, Streets & Trips 2012 will have it on there. I am an independent contractor for FedEx and own the route that has Craig County and Botetourt County. I use Streets & Trips to set up my route each day.

rkockh - I hope you'll be pleased with the updated data you'll find in the yet to be released version of Streets & Trips. I did a quick check and it appears that the streets in both counties have house numbers.

That's good. Is all of Craig county on the 2012 S&T of just downtown New Castle? I googled Microsoft Streets & Trips 2012 and got a hit. Is the 2012 version out?

not out yet. Don't be fooled. If you frequent this forum you'll be one of the first to know when it is available.

I'm seeing some roads in Craig Springs, around Loooney, Paint Bank, Catawba, New Port, etc. Those are some small towns! Let me know if you need a check on a specific address.