Send Us Your Updates
Having
worked with commercial HGV drivers for many years we know the industries need for reliable,
accurate and up to date road and transport data. It took 14 months and enormous
effort to survey and collate our UK Low Bridges data. Now thousands of drivers
rely on this every day as they travel around the UK.
So to make sure that the info is kept up to date we spend our time collecting new locations, checking heights and making changes. As part of this we are happy to accept changes from our drivers, You can help to make sure that the information is up to date and we can also alter those niggling little errors that annoy you. In return we will send you an updated file straight back, rather than having to wait for the next release. Currently we only explain the method for the TomTom series below. However we can accept the data in any standard sat-nav format if you can make a file.
Make custom POI for TomTom's to send us changes
It really quite simple, we will tell you how to:
1. Setup a "custom" POI set on your TOMTOM to use as a "bucket" for changes
2. Add your current position to that custom POI set (when you find a new
location or incorrect POI and want to let us know)
3. Extract the data off your TOMTOM and send it to us
Make a "Custom" POI set to add changes to
If you are using a readymade POI file that we have sent out to you then you can skip to the next heading. If not then do as follows to make your "custom" POI set:
Go into "change preferences" and select "Manage POI"
Select “Add POI Category”
Now type in a name for it we, suggest “HGV UPDATES” or something you can recognise it by when its on your TomTom. Just make sure that its not got the same name as a POI set you already have or the old one will be deleted.
Select a MARKER for the POI, there's a nice choice of symbols, pick something that works for you (its only a visual aid). You now have a new POI category called "HGV UPDATES" (or your name) with nothing inside it. However this is a "container" to use when you add your locations.
You can now add the current GPS position (where you are) to this as well as other POI’s from map locations (as you scroll around the map), Postcodes and so-forth. In fact anything that relates to a normal POI you can add to this. For now we just want to add the current location of your vehicle, so we can know where lay-bys, bridges and so forth are located.
It is worth mentioning that if you know where a bridge or other POI is located but have not driven there, you can use the Browse Map feature on the tomtom to find that sport. You can place the market on that spot (after zooming in) and then add that place to this POI set. This allows you to add places that you may not visit again for some time but you know there's a bridge or other relevant item there.
Add your current position to the "custom" POI set
The main use however will be to add your location as you drive. This will be truckstops, stop-overs in lay-bys, Bridges and so on. You do this by adding a new entry and typing anything relevant about it into the description.
To add a new position (your
current GPS position in LATITUDE/LONGITUDE) to the POI set you made above then do as follows;
Make sure you are at the place that you want to add. Practically this will be as
near as you can be to the POI you are adding. We know that sometimes this isn’t
practical, just get as close as you can. Obviously the closer you can get to the POI the better.
Making sure you are as close as possible then please select as before:
Select “Manage POI” again
This time select “Add POI”
You will be asked for the category of POI, please select the POI category
"HGV
UPDATES" (or whatever you called it) and then you will see the following screen:
Scroll to the right using the arrow & you will see the following screen:
Now above are all the "places" you can add. There are Postcodes, finding a Point on the map and adding that as described earlier. There's also the one we ant which is "GPS position". This picks up the satellite co-ordinates of where you are and adds this to the POI.
You will now be asked to give this location a name (a name for the GPS position you are adding as a POI). Please try and put the following;
A distance that you are from the actual POI if you cannot reach it (if over
20m)
Then a description in text of the POI e.g. TRUCKSTOP - M6
West, LOW BRIDGE 14ft 3in on A492, LAY-BY WITH SPACE FOR 4 HGV etc..
The more info you can give the better. Also if you are a distance from the actual Location (you cant really stop just before a Bridge and block traffic !) then put the distance e.g. 100m. We will when we get the data work out where the bridge is.
Extract the "custom" POI and send it to us
Attach your tomtom using the USB cable, as if you were adding a new POI (see our
detailed instructions on the website of you don’t know how to do this).
We now need to locate the "folder" on the TomTom that holds the "custom" POI we
made, so we can copy it out to our computer.
In the United kingdom this is generally a folder called Great Britain or Great Britain and Republic of Ireland or Western Europe or a combination of that. We list some examples below:
x:\Western_Europe\
x:\Great_Britain-Map\
x:\Great_Britain_map\
x:\Western_Europe-map\
x:\Great_Britain_plus-map\
x:\Great_Britain Navigator Map\
x:\GB_plus_major_roads_of_WE\
x:\United_Kingdom_and_Republic_of_Ireland\
x:\Great _Britian_and _roads_Western-Europe\
x: will be a different drive letter on your machine, substitute what's relevant. Also your map folder may be called something else than the above, but it should be obvious enough. You know you have the right place because inside the folder will be the file called HGV_UPDATES.OV2 (in our case, yours may be called whatever name you used).
Now just copy that file to your computer and then email it to us, and we will do the rest. As you add points to it they are "appended", so you can send the file to us many times with a few more added. Make sure you "copy" the file to your PC to send to us, don't "move" it or you won't be able to add any new POI to it.
Please e-mail the file to helpdesk@hgvsolutions.com
thanks very much for your help and we look forwards to getting your POI updates and adding them to the data, the team at HGVSOLUTIONS.