MetroGuide
Europé
This review
is updated 2003-06-06
Introduction
Garmin has now introuduced MetroGuide Europe 5.0. With the introduction
of MetroGuide Europe 4.0, Garmin put the maps of the different Western European
countries into one single product. As a bonus came that these maps suddenly
became comparatively sensibly priced, since you could now get maps covering a
rather large area at the same cost as previously only one or two countries
required. Now, it's time for the first upgrade to this product, version 5.0.
Hence, this review is updated to reflect the changes between the versions.
Still, some of the experiences with the maps, that are related below, are based
on my travelling together with the 4.0 version. Where it isn't important, I
haven't explicitly pointed out which version that was used at a particular
instance. Ususally, what worked well in the previous version should work at
least as good with the new version, too.
Having only one Garmin GPS unit, the eTrex Vista, this report is based
on my experience of using this software with such a GPS. Other GPS units may be
better, or less, suited to take advantage of some of the features of the map
software.
Installation
The European map installed without
problem together with my earlier MapSource products, i.e. WorldMap, MetroGuide
Sweden/Denmark and Europe 4.0 as well as some other homemade maps. My previous
MapSource was updated to version 4.13 (the most recent at the time of writing)
before installing the new maps, and stays just like that when the new program
is installed. I've tried it on two computers, running Windows 2000 and Me. It
seems to do the same job, regardless of the operating system.
The installation principle is the same as with the previous MetroGuide
Europe. You can run from the CD, or select one or more of the seven regions to
be installed on the hard drive. The autorouting and find functions don’t work,
unless the data files are on the hard drive. Installing all seven regions takes
a little more than 1 GB of disk space.
Coverage
If the introduction of MG 4.0 in Europe was some kind of revolution,
this new product is more about evolution. The new European map covers 19
countries in Western Europe. The Czech Republic is a completely new country in this
version. For an overview, see the Garmin
cartography website.
In Sweden, which of course is of particular interest to me, coverage has
increased in the north. Now the entire Sweden is covered, as it seems to about
the same level as the other parts of the country.
While 19 countries are covered, more or less, with downloadable maps,
the MapSource map does cover more than that. Outside the downloadable areas,
there are still maps, but about as detailed as the WorldMap. They aren’t
identical, though, so maybe they are from the updated WorldMap, which some
rumors stated should have been introduced the summer 2002?
The map actually covers the rectangle from W18º to E35º, N27º to N75º.
This is equivalent to the eastern coast of Iceland in the west, to a line from
Murmansk to Nicosia in the east. In the south, coverage has been expanded well
into Sahara. This is a sideeffect of the inclusion of Gran Canaria and Tenerife
among the downloadable map segments.
Limited area or varied
level of detail
The degree of coverage varies between the different countries, but not
in the same way. Some countries, like France, Ireland and Spain, have detailed
coverage in the larger cities, but are limited to the main roads in smaller
towns and villages. Here, however, has been a significant upgrade since version
4.0. Without having had any time to actually travel with this new version, I
can still see that in several places, the level of detail has been
significantly increased. Still, among the countries that were mapped at all in
version 4.0, Ireland seems to be worst. Many roads have only a short part of a
crossing river or railroad indicated, not the whole object. Some areas I'm
familiar with in France look the same as before, i.e. not all streets
reproduced on the map, but some other areas have suddenly got a whole new set
of roads and streets added to them. As far as I can tell, nothing has improved
in Portugal.
In some countries, part of the country has full detail, while there is
no map at all to download in other parts. Norway carries this method to the
extreme, with coverage of the capital, Oslo, and its immediate surroundings
only and no map at all in the rest of the country. Finland has improved, with
more coverage around Helsinki. It now reaches up to and includes Tampere.
Still, most of Finland isn't covered. Even inside Sweden, there is a difference
in the information provided for different areas. Although the streets and roads
seem to be very detailed everywhere, there aren’t that many street names when
you go further north. More names are listed in version 5.0, though.
In some cases, the selection of what to include and what to exclude from
the maps is somewhat bizarre. Spain has been extended to include Gran Canaria
and Tenerife, but neither Fuerteventura nor Lanzarote. Among the Balearic
Islands, Mallorca is included, but not Menorca or Ibiza. The map tile covering
the Channel Islands still can't be downloaded, for some other obscure reason.
By comparing the map with some locations I'm familiar with in Germany,
Switzerland, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Belgium, I could see
that they were mapped accurately with great detail. The area around waypoints
I've previously stored in Spain are now mapped with greater detail than before.
Similar comparisons with waypoints I’ve stored in France revealed that these
places are also accurately mapped, but with less detail. No
improvement compared to version 4.0. During the organization of an orienteering
meet (Tockarps Idrottsklubb, see links here,
or here for Swedish), I had to use several of the
smallest roads. In this area (northwest of Skåne), the smaller roads seemed as
accurate as the larger ones. However, don’t expect that you can use the
smallest roads with an ordinary car. They are better suited for a 4WD truck or
a farming tractor. With an ordinary car, you’ll most likely either get stuck or
slam into some rock.
Notice that some of the experiences listed below are related to the 4.0
version, but generally, version 5.0 is even better.
In Skåne (Sweden) the bridge over Rönne river in Tranarp is now
correctly mapped in version 5.0.
While visiting the Basel area in Switzerland, it seemed that the roads
were well up to date, in spite of the rather frequent building activity in the
area. There are a great number of restaurants and other POIs in the city. This
gave my eTrex Vista a hard time, trying to display the correct part of the map.
Since the display of an eTrex is rather narrow, it doesn’t take too much
driving to get out of the display, after a turn to the left or right. This
assuming that you have “Course up” as the map setting. Since the map contains
so many details, the Vista didn’t get to show the next chunk of map, until the
vehicle already had left that too. The result was a blank display, until the
next traffic light, where the GPS had a chance to catch up. The remedy to this
problem was to go down in map detail (I usually use “More” rather than “Normal”)
and/or to turn off the display of the POIs. It’s also possible to set the display
of the POIs to a greater zoom level, so that they don’t show up until you’ve
selected a zoom level more appropriate for walking. Searching for the POIs will
work anyway, regardless of the map setting. The fact that tall buildings
frequently obscure the satellites, giving the GPS a hard time trying to get a
fix, did of course nothing to reduce the workload on the processor.
In Aesch, a small town south of Basel, I needed to call the hotel I was
booked into, but I didn't know the number. MG Europe did, and it was correct,
too! I also used the map to find the main railway station in Basel, which
worked without any problem. There is an ancient castle at the rim of this town,
called Ruine Pfeffingen. That isn't mapped where it actually is, although you
can see it from the incorrect position, since the difference isn't worse than
200 meters.
The same problem I had in Basel goes for Paris, too. The large numbers
of streets and other map clutters, means that the Vista simply can’t update the
map quickly enough, unless you at least go down to the “Normal” level of
map detail. Apart from that, the part of the map I used in and around Paris was
exactly what one could expect. In the rural areas there aren’t all of the
roads, but that means that the GPS easily has time to update the map. Nothing
bad that doesn’t give some advantage in return. In France, many smaller cities
now (v 5.0) have a detailed network of streets, but not the very small towns
were I've been working several times, or at least enough to be able to judge
the level of detail of the map without acutally having to go there.
Around Birmingham, Great Britain, it’s the same. When you go into the
smaller villages and towns, though, there isn’t that many details to show (but
the map itself is very detailed in the UK), meaning that the map display is
appropriate enough. Finding a hotel using the POI provided was no problem, in
spite of it being in the small village Abbots Salford, 15 km from Stratford
upon Avon. When I received the name and address of the hotel, I simply cut and
paste from an e-mail into the advanced find function, and there it was. Knowing
where to go, I let MapSource calculate an autoroute (see below for further
information) from the airport, and that was exactly the proper route to go. In
Cornwall the map also proved to be very detailed, with the very small and
narrow roads appropriately mapped.
In Emmelshausen, south of Koblenz, Germany, the old MG Germany only had
the main street. The new map has a lot of side streets, and also street names. Thanks
to Wolfgang Schmidt for this information. Some kilometers east of Frankfurt am
Main, in Lohr and Marktheidenfeld, MG Europe worked well, when we tried to
locate a hotel none of us new the location of. The position given by MG Europe
for the hotel was the entry to the car park, which is a reasonable concept for
a product heavily geared towards car travel.
This varied level of detail also results in another anomaly when using
the zoom function. The relationship between what you see at different zoom levels,
and the “Detail” setting that you've chosen in the Preferences menu,
seems consistent in areas where the maps are detailed. Like in Switzerland or
in Sweden. But if you look at Ireland, it works as one could expect in Dublin
and some more thoroughly mapped towns (v 5.0) only. The rural areas behave very
strangely. In order to see the roads and cities that actually are mapped in
these areas, you have to decrease the “detail” setting, not
increase it. It’s not just that there isn’t space for names or so at higher
detail settings, but there simply are no details shown. But with a setting for
less detail, you get more! At certain zoom levels, you simply cannot set the “Detail”
setting such that you can see the details that actually are there. This
behavior is limited to the MG Europe, regardless of version. Changing to the
WorldMap over the same area, gives the expected result. The update to version
4.13 of the MapSource program didn’t cure this problem.
To add to the confuison on Ireland, there are also map object that are
different, depending upon which level of detail you select. There is for
example at least on airport, which changes its name, when you change the detail
setting! This goes with version 5.0 just as it did with the previous version.
No improvement at all in that aspect. There is an improvement, though, when it
comes to how much is really on the map in Ireland. The rural areas have a few
more roads, and some more towns are reproduced with all streeets on the map.
The Dublin area is expanded, too, to give the street level detail at a greater
distance from the city centre. Of the parts of MG Europe that I have examined,
the maps over Ireland seem to be the weirdest of them all.
Advanced find function
The find function is improved, compared to the basic find functionality
provided with the MG Sweden/Denmark. While the older map supported finding of
cities only, the MG Europe also allows searching for street addresses and
points of interest (POI’s). The MG Sweden/Denmark supported this function only
when downloaded to a GPS unit, like the eTrex Vista.
It’s quite impressive to be able to enter a particular street address,
anywhere in the 19 countries covered, and instantly get the map pointer to that
position.
An example, from just south of Versailles, west of Paris, is provided to
the left.
In case there are more than one place that fits the description, a list
is given in the lower part of the find dialogue. It’s also possible to narrow
down the search by supplying additional information.
The later releases of MapSource also allow searching for street names
without specifying any number, in case your address doesn’t have any number.
Autorouting
Just like with version 4.0, automatic route calculation is offered in
the PC only. There is no route calculation data that can be transferred to a
unit like the GPS V. But routes can be calculated in the PC, and then (in
simplified form) be downloaded to the GPS.
So, how does it perform? According to my opinion, it works very well!
While there are always instances when somebody, who is familiar with an area,
will make a smarter route choice than the program does, the routes calculated
are fully useful. There are also reasonable differences between the routes calculated
with priority set to speed versus distance. There doesn't seem to be any
difference at all in the autorouting performance or behavior, compared to the
previous version.
The performance is quite reasonable. Shorter routes, within the same
city or so, are calculated almost instantly. A test with a route from central
Stockholm, Sweden to 
a street crossing in Rome, Italy (across most of Europe), was calculated
in less than 50 seconds on a 1400 MHz PC. The resulting route was about 2700 km
long, containing 53 points. Modifying the route to include a visit in Basel,
Switzerland, took less than a minute. While this is significantly slower than
some other systems, intended for car use only, will perform, one has to
consider that the time for arranging the transfer of the route to the GPS is
longer than the time to calculate the route. From version 4.08 of MapSource, a
progress bar is shown during the calculation, so that you can estimate how much
longer you’ll have to wait.
Besides, systems for fixed installations in cars usually cost several
times more than this combination of GPS and software, at least if you exclude
the PC itself.
On the computer, such a route is shown with the different turn
instructions listed. Graphically, the route follows the road in question on the
map, rather than being straight lines between the turnpoints. By MapSource, the
turnpoints aren’t considered equal to the waypoints the user has specified as
mandatory to pass.
However, when transmitted to a GPSr like the eTrex Vista, each turnpoint
is considered a leg in the route. The Vista doesn’t support autorouting, but
assumes that all waypoints along a route are user specified.
An automatically calculated route, which is downloaded to the GPSr and
then uploaded to the PC again, loses the information about where the calculated
road is. Such a route will be shown on the PC with straight lines between the
turnpoints.
When calculating routes automatically, the number of turnpoints isn’t
known until the calculation is complete. While a GPSr, which supports
autorouting in the unit itself (like the Garmin GPS V), allows at least 250,
and some up to 1000, legs in one route, most units without autorouting allow no
more than 50 legs. So how useful is that, when routes are calculated automatically?
Better than I expected, actually. The number of turnpoints generated is
reasonably small. The program sets a lot of short legs in a route where there
are many turns to make on small streets. But once on the highway, it can go for
a long distance without wasting any turnpoints. It seems that as long as the
road number is the same, the program will rely on the user to stay on the same
road.
In the real world, this works well. Just like when traveling without any
GPS, it’s easy to follow the highways, while you need more detailed directions
at intersections and when approaching the final target.
When using an automatically calculated route, you still have to check
that the whole route actually is transferred to the GPS. If the program
generates a route with more than 50 legs, the route is simply truncated at the
50th turnpoint, when downloaded. In such cases, you have to set a
waypoint manually where the route is truncated, and continue with a new route
from there. It would have been a lot smarter, if it would be possible to tell
the program how many waypoints your GPS can handle, and make the program fix
the routes automatically. Reducing the resolution is probably not a good idea,
but making two or more routes, split up at the max waypoint limit for that particular
GPS, would make it possible to use autorouting without too much considerations
from the user. As it is now, it’s not even possible to see directly how many
turnpoints there are in the route. Mapsource will count only the waypoints the
user has specified as mandatory to pass during the route.
However, as long as you stay with two given points (from and to), the
number of generated points between the beginning and the end of the route
usually fits within the 50 legs limit. Some of Garmin's units have been upgrade
to allow up to 125 waypoints in a route. This is true for my Vista, for
example, which right now runs version 3.20 of the firmware. All things said
above regarding the 50 waypoint limit is of course 2.5 times easier to live
with if you have a unit that can take 125 waypoints in a route.
I tried to follow a route from Saussay to Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France.
This is about 75 km, from west of Paris to between the Arcs of Triumph (the traditional
and the new at La Defense). It works best when having the map page on the GPS,
with navigation status (distance to next turn) shown. Using only the arrow has
a shortcoming when in a car, since you can’t have any early warning for several
upcoming turns. This would work better in a GPS V, I assume. Nevertheless, I
came directly to the spot on Avenue Charles de Gaulle, which I was aiming for.
The program also correctly calculated two different routes, depending upon if I
checked the “Avoid toll roads” box or not. The A14 towards Rouen from
Paris has a toll both between Paris and Mantes.
As I pointed out above (see Coverage),
there are map data outside the downloadable regions. Autorouting works just as
well on this part of the map. A 4448 km long route from Ivalo in northern
Finland to Athens, Greece, can be calculated (took two seconds), in spite of
the fact that there isn’t one single meter of that road that can be downloaded
into the GPS. If you have the WorldMap too, you can download the map from that
product, and calculate the route with MG Europe. Or you can simply use the
route and the basemap in your GPS, assuming you have a mapping unit with the
appropriate basemap.
The turnpoints are described in detail, with a text, in the program. A
unit like the Vista can only show a fraction of this text, which makes it a
little more difficult to understand what it means when it wants you to follow a
particular ramp off the highway, for example. Or through a bunch of consecutive
roundabouts, as they have in England.
The verbose text is automatically abbreviated
when downloaded to the Vista, as you can see above.
Downloading
Downloading the maps works just as it did with the previous MapSource
products. However, there has been a significant improvement in the size of the
map tiles. They are now much smaller, which means that it's a lot easier to
download the areas you acutally want to, without adding a lot of more maps,
that may be irrelevant to your actual need. All the maps required to cover the
entire road along the automatic route from Stockholm to Rome (2700 km long),
took about 77 MB of memory in the previous version. In this version, I came up
a little less than 32 MB. If you want the maps in the unit along the entire journey,
you still have to bring a laptop and reload now and then, assuming you have a
24 MB memory unit. But almost all of that trip now fits in! Still, we are here
talking about a need to cover about the same area, perhaps with more details
and POI's than in the previous version. The maps I used to load into my Vista
while at home consisted of 36 map tiles from MG Europe 4.0. 
With version 5.0, I'm now using 88 map tiles. No more need to download a
part of Denmark I rarely visit, just because it happened to be on the same map
tile as Gothenburg.
Level of detail
At least in Sweden, where I have something to compare with, the number
of towns with their streets named included has increased. While previously
several small towns, with a population of 5000 people or less, had their
streets properly reproduced, they didn’t have the street names on the map.
As a compromise, several smaller towns have the street names on the map,
but not the numbers of the different houses. Another peculiarity with this new
map, is that small villages, that consists of only some houses along the road,
have the road named after them. These places aren’t listed as cities, so they
can’t be found with the “Search cities” option on the Find menu.
However, you can look for the by “Locate address”, since there is a road
named after them. Just enter any number along the road, and the name of the
village as the road name. If you get too many hits, specifying the county
capital as the city, will usually narrow down the search to whatever you want.
But this doesn’t work everywhere. While it does seem to work in the entire
Skåne (southernmost province of Sweden), already in Kronobergs län it doesn’t.
There isn’t the required level of detail. But many more small towns have got
their street names listed now, in version 5.0, than before. This has finally resulted
in my street name being on the map :-)
I noticed a side effect of this while in Närke, west of Stockholm. In
Sweden, houses outside villages and towns don’t have any street address.
Instead, they have an address like “Postlåda 1534” (Mailbox 1534). As a
consequence, several roads in MetroGuide Europe are named “Postlada”… I haven’t
seen this around where I live, though. It’s true that there are more villages
in the same area here, further south in Sweden, but it’s also a fact that here
are addresses that simply is a mailbox. I don’t know why there is a difference
between the occurrences of these addresses further north, compared to here.
Selecting all of the map tiles for downloading gives a total of 2220
maps, comprising 812 MB. The previous version had only 449 maps, totalling 604
MB. The program appropriately makes a note about that this amount of maps “may
not fit” in the GPS, although it is more concerned about that 2220 map tiles
"may be too many" in the new version. Seems reasonable. Some examples
of the memory required for different configurations are given in the table
here. I've also included the number of map tiles, to make it easy to comprehend
the difference in resolution, when it comes to selecting which maps to use.
This new arrangement is of course of particular interest to owners of GPS units
with more limited memory capacity, like the 8 MB eTrex Legend. From the data in
the table, it's rather easy to see that the number of map tiles has increased everywhere,
and also that the details in the maps have increased in some areas, but not
everywhere. Compare Portugal and Italy, for example.
Also, it seems that in spite of generally more details, the maps don't
require more memory than before, unless of course the level of detail has
increased significantly. Maybe a more efficient packing method has been used.
As before, the map tiles are arranged in a rectangular matter, except at the
borders, where they (usually) follow the border between two countries, to allow
exclusion of one or another country.
Up to date
Several errors in the old maps, either real errors or just outdated
information, have been corrected in version 5.0. There may be many more, but I
did know about a few errors in the area where I spend most of my time, and they
are corrected. One error was a street crossing near where I live, which wasn't
reproduced correctly. I reported that error to Garmin, and in this version it's
fixed, in spite of having the same error in both the old MG Sweden/Denmark and
the previous version of MG Europe. I doubt anyone else have complained about
that particular error, so I think it pays to complain. Still, it took me only a
few hours to find yet another error of the same kind, only a few more
kilometers from here. Also, when searching for street names near where I live,
the addresses aren't correctly given when it comes to the zip code. Only the
first three of the five digits are shown, but some streets are listed with two
digits in front of the names, so I suspect that the database is corrupt in this
case. A more intense investigation of streets and POI's all over Sweden
reveals that there isn't one single address that is correct on the map in this
country! They all miss two out of five digits in the zip code. This is the
same, whether you look at the PC or in the GPS. Also, one of the streets in my
village, which now did get their names on the map, is incorrectly named. I
guess I have to collect all these errors, send them to Garmin/NavTech, and see
if they are corrected in version 6.0!
I know of a new bridge along the highway E4 in Sweden, and some islands
outside Gothenburg, where the land mass just disappeared in version 4.0, but
both of these errors have been corrected in version 5.0. Generally, it takes an
unrealistic amount of travel to check everything, but at least there is
evidence that some map data has been updated since the previous version.
Using in a Vista
Once the maps are downloaded to the Vista GPS, they work pretty much the
same as the old MG Sweden/Denmark. One new feature is that the map provides
information about whether smaller roads are paved or gravel roads. Gravel roads
are dashed on the GPS display. I compared this information to the real world
around where I live. It isn’t really accurate to the letter, but if you
interpret “gravel road” as “unsuitable for ordinary cars”, it’s pretty much on
the mark. See screen dump to the left.
Since there are more streets with names, but without street numbers,
searching for addresses involving these streets gives a somewhat different
result. Regardless of what number you enter, you’ll get a hit for each part of
the road, which has the same name. A part, in this case, is defined to start
each time the road passes another crossing. Also, with the previous MG
Sweden/Denmark, searching for addresses was limited to the nearest cities. I
don’t know exactly, put perhaps within a radius of 100 nautical miles. With MG
Europe, however, searching is done on all the maps downloaded to the unit. It
seems that, if you search for something like Main Street, you’ll get eight
hits. There are probably many more, but to sort that out you simply enter the
name of the town, or the zip code, too. It works very well. The only problem is
the new error with the Swedish zipcodes in version 5.0.
Also, the third item on the search menu, searching for cities, didn’t
work at all with the previous MetroGuide. Well, it did allow searching for the
nearest cities, but searching for a particular name worked with the base map
only. Not of much use, if you are outside the coverage of the map in the unit.
With MG Europe, on the other hand, searching for any city name on the
downloaded maps works perfectly. In a few seconds, you’ve narrowed it down to
the particular town you’re looking for. The country is also displayed, when you
are doing your selection (see picture to the left). The firmware nowdays also
allows the user to specify if he wants to search for cities on the basemap or
on the MetroGuide map.
While a Vista never provides autorouting in the unit itself, it should
be pointed out that MG Europe provides autorouting in the PC only. It will
not work in a GPS V or a StreetPilot, something the MetroGuide USA does. At
least version 4.0 does.
Summary
For anyone traveling in Europe with a Garmin GPS in general, and a
mapping unit in particular, MetroGuide Europe in general is a long leap forward
compared to what was available before. Version 5.0 is a natural evolution of
version 4.0, since it doesn't add any particular new function, but is more up
to date and just works a little smoother, with the more fragmented map tiles.
The back side? Mainly the different Garmin hardware platforms that is
available. To keep up with the significantly improved maps provided by MG
Europe, we need a new GPS. The Garmin 76S is out, but it is no better than the
Vista, memorywise. I can understand that the implementation of a reasonable
memory cartridge in a unit as small as the eTrex is troublesome, but in the
bulkier 76 housing, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. With the increased
level of information on these maps, at least I personally, who normally travel
through Europe at least once every month, would need a unit that holds more
maps and can load them faster. USB programmable cartridges, with at least
128 MB, but preferably 256 MB. If I skip France, Great Britain, eastern part of
Germany and northern part of Sweden, I can get maps of most of my normal
traveling area covered. But it wouldn’t load over RS232 in the lifetime of a
battery… Perhaps the soon to be introduced iQue 3600 is an answer to this
question? On the other hand, the smaller map tiles makes version 5.0 more
suited to a Legend, with only 8 MB of memory.
Anders Persson, Lagan, Sweden 2003-06-06