Last night I went into Chicago for theatre and dinner. As usual, I let my Garmin 2730 guide me (it has GPS and integrates traffic information). It was late on a Saturday afternoon. Despite my disbelief, I followed its route. I don't know why it was routing me away from the expressways. After a time, I insisted and headed towards I94 (and am glad - shaved 10 minutes off my ETA time in a very short time ). At one point (a little early) it routed me off of I94 onto Skokie Blvd. Assuming a bottleneck, I complied, but after a bit of traffic, I repented and found my way back to I94. It was moving quite well. I was able to make up _some_ of the lost time, but I was about 5 minutes late instad of 15+ minutes early. Down in the city, Garmin suggested an exit that I _did_ finally take (could see the congestion ahead).
So - what is the problem?
- Is the traffic data not correct / sufficient as fed through the satellite feeds?
- Is the software doing too much generalization (a bottleneck somewhere on 94? stay off of ALL of 94).
- Why is the software not choosing shortest time (we're talking 25% off here - it's significant!)?
As for out of town - well, I'll at least it always seems to get me to the correct place.
