OFF: autotours was HW: U.S. Tour, VENUES (Dallas)

[Paul Mather]

Jill writes:

> Jerry Guizar writes:
>
>
> >    Isn't there a computer program out that'll map out routes and print
> > them out for you?
>
> There was a good one in this country that was going round for a while -
> it's only problem was when you overloaded it with too many variables it
> eventually declared that there "are no routes available".   It was
> probably, on reflection, designed by British Rail.

Actually, don't laugh, but British Rail put out a free PC version of their
timetable planning software (or used to, circa 1994, which was the last
time I had access to a copy).  It was really handy on two counts: 1) it
saved you having to buy a copy of their yearly complete timetable; 2) it
allowed you to plan efficient rail journeys at your leisure (instead of
having to queue up to get some BR person to plan a multi-change journey
for you).  It was pretty nifty, and free to boot!  (Do they still offer
it?)

As for road trips, there are at least two WWW-accessible road journey
planning pages.  Both are for demonstrating CD-ROM route-planning
software.  One is by Microsoft, the other by DeLorme (AAA Map 'n' Go).  I
don't have the URL's offhand, but I could probably dredge them out of my
bookmarks.  Of the two demos, the DeLorme is by far the better: it offers
a choice of route criteria (shortest or quickest), and can produce "strip
maps" of the route travelled.  Also, as far as I know, the WWW demo is not
restricted like the Microsoft one.  The Microsoft demo is limited to 6,500
popular cities, unlike the CD-ROM which knows 150,000 or so.  The
Microsoft WWW demo also seems to run as slow as molasses if you run it
from their page.

I recently used both of these to plan a trip from Blacksburg, VA to
Gettysburg, PA.  Both planned efficient routes (sticking mostly to I-81,
as you'd expect).  The strip maps provided by the DeLorme program were
most useful.  Btw, the DeLorme software is endorsed by the AAA (as its
name suggests).  (For all I know, maybe they use it for their
"tripticks?")

Btw, I found both of these via an Altavista search for "route planning"
or something similar.

Cheers,

Paul.

obCD: The Bevis Frond, _New River Head_

e-mail: paul at csgrad.cs.vt.edu                    A stranger in a strange land.