MRA trip time vs. BaseCamp/XT

[tombarrington]

A recent trip (and the associated planning) had me creating routes in BaseCamp and also saving the gpx files to MRA Routeplanner in case I needed to make adjustments in the field and transfer wirelessly to the XT. In terms of distance, the routes match to within tenths of a mile. The trip durations, though, were significantly different: 8 hours, 39 minutes in BaseCamp and 11 hours, 28 minutes in MRA. Is anyone familiar with MRA's method for calculating duration?

Once in the XT the BaseCamp file produced a similar duration, so it isn't something in the BaseCamp activity profile. I'm using the free version of MRA with OpenStreetMap but I could not detect any differences in the route at all. As a final check I saved the MRA file as .gpx 1.1 and sent it to the XT via the Drive app. It too calculated 8 hours, 39 minutes.

A search did not yield any information as to how MRA calculates trip durations. My other routes from this trip showed similar spreads. Something to think about if using MRA as a primary trip planning resource. Perhaps the Gold subscription and HERE map would yield different results.

[smfollen]

@tombarrington Do you know which, if either, turned out to be accurate?

[tombarrington]

Yes, the BaseCamp/XT was much closer in terms of actual ride time. I typically don't program pauses in my routes so the route reflects time in motion. Even if I did include time for fuel, food, and breaks it would be less than the duration calculated by MRA.

[Mzokk]

MRA's trip calculation times are a bit mor conservative than basecamp. Possibly for two reasons. I Europe tends to be a bit more congested than the US and what passes for a minor road in the US is very different than what passes for a minor road in Europe.

This is not untypical of minor or L roads in Ireland. You are lucky to average more than 30mph on some of these.

IMG_20230817_120520636 (2).jpg (176.73 KiB) Viewed 1345 times

[tombarrington]

This makes complete sense, thank you.

[FrankB]

This tread is about the difference between MRA and Basecamp. But an other important factor is the MAP data. The same route in BC calculated with the CN 2026.20 and an OSM map shows only 1 km difference in distance, but 57 minutes difference in time. And yes they are visually the same.

CN:

CN.jpg (22.57 KiB) Viewed 1326 times

OSM:

OSM.jpg (20.66 KiB) Viewed 1326 times

Every road is assigned a class in the map. BC, and the XT, use that road class to calculate the speed. Different road classes will give you different times.

[tombarrington]

Seems like the application of road classifications would be fairly consistent. I don’t have the MRA Gold subscription but I would expect the MRA HERE map to give results close to CN given they’re the same or similar.

[Oop North John]

MRA's trip calculation times are a bit mor conservative than basecamp. Possibly for two reasons. I Europe tends to be a bit more congested than the US and what passes for a minor road in the US is very different than what passes for a minor road in Europe.

This is not untypical of minor or L roads in Ireland. You are lucky to average more than 30mph on some of these.

IMG_20230817_120520636 (2).jpg

Similar problems up in Scotland where an "A" road might only be wide enough for one car, or a dual lane in both directions. And the one car width road might be an easy 60mph with good visibility, to a twisting adventure that at 30mph feels too fast.

[Peobody]

I have never used MRA but I found significant differences in times between BaseCamp and the XT when I first started with both. I then found the BaseCamp configuration option for setting average speeds. Adjustments there narrowed the difference. The default settings were too conservative. These are what I use.

clipimage.png (32.08 KiB) Viewed 1303 times

[tombarrington]

I then found the BaseCamp configuration option for setting average speeds. Adjustments there narrowed the difference.

I have that configuration sorted pretty well. Would be nice if MRA offered a similar option. It's a really easy program to use and nice to have accessible via the internet when on the road. As mentioned, I'm using the free version that offers only the OSM maps. The paid version, using HERE maps, might match better with BaseCamp.