TomTom Itinerary Planning
TomTom devices come with a great feature called Itinerary Planning. This will allow you to create a single route (known as an Itinerary) with multiple stops along the way. If your travels require you to visit many locations in one day, having the Itinerary Planning feature can be a huge time saver. Unfortunately, this is also probably one of the most underutilized features on TomTom devices. A few people have written to us who were having trouble using the feature, so here is a guide to Itinerary Planning on TomTom GPS devices.
Let’s start by defining a few terms we will use.
- Waypoint: A specific location you want to drive through, however you might not necessarily be stopping there. For example if you don’t like the route suggested to get from point A to point B, you could add point C to the route as a waypoint to force the route to go via that location, taking your desired route.
- Destination: A specific location where you will be making one of your stops in your daily journey.
- Itinerary: A list of waypoints and/or destinations combined in a specific order into a single route. You can have multiple Itineraries stored on your device, although only one can be “active” at any time. The Itinerary is your complete plan for the day.
There are two scenarios where you might use Itineraries. The first is for people in real estate or sales who need to visit many specific addresses in one trip. This might also apply to people on vacation who want to visit multiple local attractions in one day. The second reason you might use the Itinerary feature is if you are planning a long drive and you know ahead of time the route suggested isn’t the optimal one.
Visiting Multiple Stops in one Trip
We’ll start first with a salesmen. I’m going to pretend that I’m a rep for Apple, and today I’m going to make a quick visit to each of the six Apple stores in Massachusetts. Since these are locations I’m likely to visit again, not just today, I’m going to add them as favorites to my TomTom.
Adding Favorites
The first store I’m going to add is the “Chestnut Hill” store. I go to the menu, select the next button to go to page 2, and click on ‘Add Favorite’. I want to add an ‘Address’, and I know the ‘Street and house number’. The city is ‘Chestnut Hill, MA’, the street is ‘Boylston’, and the number is 199. I’ll give this favorite the name ‘Apple Store Chestnut Hill’ and click done. I repeat this process for the other five locations.
Creating the Itinerary
I’ve added each of the six locations as favorites since I will probably need those addresses in the future. Now I can start to create my Itinerary. From the Main Menu I select ‘Itinerary planning’. My Itinerary is currently blank, so I click on ‘Add’ to add my first location. The type of location I want to add is a ‘Favorite’, and then I select the first store in the list. I then click ‘Add’ again and repeat this process, adding each of the six locations. Once I’ve added all six of my locations, I click ‘Options’, ‘Save Itinerary’, I give this Itinerary a name of “Apple Stores Mass”, and then click ‘Done’.
Now my entire Itinerary for the day is done, and the TomTom offers to route me to the first destination in my list. Once I arrive at my first destination, I can mark that destination as visited, and the TomTom will route me to the next destination.
This is great, however I like to mark each location not as a destination, but as a waypoint. To do this, go back to the Itinerary, click on one of the destinations, and then select, ‘Mark as waypoint’. Go back and mark each of the stores as a waypoint. Then I go back and add my home/current location to the end of the list, leaving that as the only destination on the list.
TomTom then asks if I want to go to the first destination, which is actually my home at the end of the day. This might sound confusing, but remember we marked each of the stores I’m visiting as a waypoint and not a destination. Therefore routing me right back to where I am now is correct.
The Big Picture
Now, the route summary tells me that my total driving time will be 2:16 and it is 101 miles. If I figure one hour at each of the six stores for business my total business time will be about six hours. Therefore the total trip will be about eight hours and sixteen minutes. If I leave at 8:00 am I ought to be home around 4:16.
Long Drive Bypasses
The second scenario is taking a long trip where you want to add multiple “vias” or waypoints to your route where the TomTom might not have suggested the optimal route. In this example I’m going to plan a route from Hartford, CT to Philadelphia, PA. Looking at the calculated route I can see that the route takes me through the middle of NYC….. Not exactly where I probably want to go.
Instead, I want to take the really long way around. Instead, I’d like to go via Newburgh, NY where 84 and 87 intersect. So I zoom in on the map at that intersection, click on part of the route where I want to travel, click the cursor button, and click ‘Add as favorite’. I’ll call it ‘1st bypass’.
Adding the Bypass to the Itinerary
Now I go to the Itinerary Planning section, add my bypass to the route, then add Philadelphia to the Itinerary. I’ll also go ahead and change my first bypass to be a waypoint rather than a destination, leaving Philadelphia as my destination. This gives me a route closer to my liking.
People familiar with TomTom devices might be wondering why I didn’t just create a regular route versus a full Itinerary, specifying my bypass favorite as a simple “travel via” point. In most cases that would work perfectly. However on longer routes you might want to take a bypass in more than one city. The regular “travel via” functionality only allows one via per route and thus you would need the Itinerary feature to handle multiple bypasses in one route (itinerary).
Here is a second reason. There are also times when you might want to build some flexibility into your route. For example you might say “I want to plan ahead to take the bypass, but if I find traffic is light, I’ll go the more direct route”. In this case when you approach the bypass you can make a decision if you want to go the planned bypass route, or take the shorter direct route. If you do nothing the GPS will route you via the bypass, however you could also edit the itinerary and delete the bypass, then the route will be modified to go the more direct way.
Final Thoughts
The TomTom Itinerary Planning feature is powerful, and allows you to create complex routes with great flexibility. I don’t use it all of the time I use TomTom devices, but it does certainly help in longer trips where you might need to seek alternate routes as well as complex routes with multiple stops in one day.
The itinerary planning on TomToms is an excellent idea, but it lacks one IMPORTANT thing. In the salesman example, say you have a dozen stops, each marked as a destination. Once you get to the first destination, it just stops. You have to go through at least 8 menu actions before you get to select “go to the next destination”. What would make infinitely more sense would be for a prompt to pop up when you get to your first destination asking if you want to proceed to your next destination. Having to go through so many menu choices every time you get to a destination makes the itinerary planning function almost useless to a truck driver making deliveries.
Hi Peter, thanks for the comment. In short, I totally agree with you that a prompt asking if you want to go to the next destination would be a good feature to add. The rest of this comment might sound like I disagree with you…. I don’t. But I’ll add a few more thoughts about this as well.
It could be argued that if you want to continue straight from one destination to the next that you just save each location as a waypoint (via) instead of a destination. Even if you are stopping and parking it would just keep rerouting you to your next destination in order. So if you want to automatically go from one to the other, use waypoints, if you want to manually go to the next, use destinations.
But it isn’t so simple. Often you want to know how long it is going to take to the next destination, in which case if you are using vias, it gives you the total distance remaining in the trip rather than just to the next stop.
I counted 7 taps to setup the next destination (at least when the next destination was one of the top five or so items.) Figure 7 taps for the first six destinations plus 8 taps for the second six destinations would make a total of 90 clicks for 12 destinations. ( (6*7)+(6*8) ) If it prompted you it would take one click per destination for a total of 12 clicks. Thus without the feature you are asking for it will take an extra 78 clicks.
It took about five seconds to make those 7 clicks so let’s say each click takes one second. So figure over the course of going to 12 destinations it will take an extra 78 seconds total. So I might disagree that adding 78 seconds to 12 stops will render the feature “useless”.
I’ll mention too that some of the devices which do automatically prompt for the next destination, such as the Magellan devices, are sometimes annoying in that while I’ve “reached my destination” and I allow it to route to the next destination it keeps trying to get me out of the parking lot I’m trying to get into. The TomTom method allows you to say when you are in fact ready to go to the next destination.
Those are all minor points though, and I totally agree with you that a “ready for the next destination?” prompt would make things easier.
Thank you for the tips. Last time I tried advanced planing, it took me to the waypoints as per the order I entered. Is there a way for Tomtom to tell me which one to visit first (optimised route) or would I need to know the order and put it into Tomtom?
You need to put in the order yourself. There are other companies who offer a feature called “route optimization” but all it really does is sort the destinations in order from closest to furthest and it doesn’t look to see if that is really the most efficient order.
Thanks Tim, I come across a 2 programmes that is pretty good. The first one is for Australia, UBD Direct, works great but cost AUD2200. The second one called ConvITN, i think. It uses google maps to search for the location then optimise it. The Google version is free but you need to be connected to the Net to use it and its around 80% optimised. Nevermind, I guess we would need to use our braincells every now and then.
I think I understand itineraries in general now (!) but I would like to plan an itinerary starting from neither my current location nor my base and I can’t see how to do it. I need this to plan a trip with friends and to give them information on time and distance. Any ideas? (GPS novice, GO910)
Kevin, I don’t think you can combine the Advanced Planning and Itinerary Planning functions. The only workaround I can think of is to use the Advanced Planning function anyway, and take advantage of the one Via you can insert. If you need more via points you might need to break the route down into multiple segments with vias and the starting location and then add them all up manually.
Kevin, you can plan your route (by Itinerary Planning functions) from another location without GPS signal but you have to use small trick
1. make whichever route from your intended starting location by Advanced Planning
2. launch the Navigation demo with minimum speed (e.g. 20%)
3. immediately after launching demo interrupt it and end it
Location where the demo was ended (your intended starting location) is now considered like your present gps location (until you end tomtom or you get gps fix) and you can use the Itinerary Planning functions. I have found this tip in another forum and it works.
Jiri
I am looking for a GPS device and service that will allow for routing up to 100 multiple destinations. I have a small business and am looking for a product that can handle my current routing needs with personal GPS devices until we grow the business to a point we can purchase fleet products and software. Can the standard store purchased TomTom XL One for the United States, import multiple destinations via Web or computer, and how many? And can it be integrated into the TomTom Work fleet software and products? Finally, is the address import function in TomTom software compatible with Microsoft programs such as Excel and Streets and Trips?
Thank you,
Quinn Harrison
This is a great site. I just got the TomTom One and like it a lot, but the manuals leave plenty of room for improvement—so this site is valuable.
I don’t quite understand what wireless data I could be getting with a Bluetooth connection to my smartphone. Also, my phone/service appears not to be supported. I have a Motorola Q through Verizon. I’m not sure what my phone/service is missing because I can’t set it up with TomTom.
Jed, the Bluetooth connection is to connect to the TomTom PLUS services such as weather, traffic reporting, etc. The majority of people don’t use it.
I know that some GPS companies (at least Garmin) allow you to plan itineraries or routes which take into account the type of vehicle you are driving. For example, when I’m towing my 18ft trailer, there are a lot of places I don’t want to be directed to which wouldn’t bother me a bit if I was just driving my car. Does TomTom support this type of routing?
TomTom offers route calculations for fastest, shortest, avoid freeways, walking, bicycling, and limited speed route creation. Those can be combined with always avoiding tolls, never avoiding tolls, or asking to avoid tolls.
So, to your knowledge, only the Garmin planner has the ability to allow me to avoid routes which are not “truck friendly”?
I believe there are other companies as well, but it isn’t a feature I commonly track.
How do you find out if a company charges extra to download whatever it is that needs to be downloaded? We hope to purchase a GPS before 9/4/07 and are researching to see which one would best suit our needs. Thank you. I have enjoyed reading the comments.
Hi Gloria, I’m not sure what type of information it is you are looking to download. Generally devices will work right out of the box without you needing to download anything.
Hi Tim…thanks for your prompt response…sorry not to be more clear…recently someone mentioned that you have to download maps etc and that it could be costly. If everything is bouncing off a satelite, why would you have to download anything?? Also, we think we would prefer to have the text to speech technology, do you know which device is the most reasonable that has this feature? Thankyou
You are both correct in a way. The only thing that comes from the satellite is the necessary information to figure out where on the planet you are. Everything itself is stored internally on your GPS. It used to be that when you purchased a GPS you needed to then load maps of your area on the device. Over the past few years since memory prices have come down all of the maps are already loaded from the factory. You can literally go to an electronics store, buy a GPS, take it out of the box, and it is ready to go.
If you go to our homepage there is a box in the upper left that says ‘find auto gps’. From there you can check the box that says ‘text to speech’ (and/or click the link to an article about who it might be beneficial for and who might be able to do without it) and then submit the form to see a list of devices that have that feature, and then from there compare some of those devices. Don’t forget that auto GPS devices which don’t have text-to-speech will still have voice prompts.
I’m using a PDA with TomTom 6 – can anyone tell me were TomTom stores the itineraries, I’ve been sent an itinerary file and I have no idea where to put it
Thanks
Answering my own question here – you create a directory in the root of your storage card called “ITN” and put the .itn files in there, start up TomTom and away you go.
We purchased the TomTom 720 – we tried having it navigate to a couple of addresses that we knew how to get to (quick and simple!)…the device went WAY out of the way to get us to our destination….any thoughts on why??
BTW…this is a fantastic site…we really appreciate all the info we have had the opportunity to read. At one point we tried the forum but sorry to say we are not computer savvy enough to navigate there!!
Gloria, That depends on your expectations and just how far “out of the way” it took you. If you would like, hit the contact button at the top and give me an example and I’ll take a look. You might also want to read our article about GPS route quality.
I am running Windows Vista, and have a TomTom Rider. Using Google maps etc. I can create an Itineraray file *.ITN, but do not know where to copy it to on my PC file directory, so that TomTom Home can see it so that I can copy it to the TomTom Rider. Any help would be much appreciated, many thanks
John, you can copy it directly to the device itself rather than going through HOME first. I think the folder it goes into is called ITN.
I have a couple of questions: Is there a limit to the number of waypoints you can put into a device? Which TomTom device would you suggest buying that has the best text to speech or voice feature or are they pretty much the same?
I think the limit is 256, but I haven’t tested that in quite some time. The limit for favorites is 50. I think they use the same TTS engine in all of their devices that have it.
I create an Itinerary but didn’t see it in the itn directory? I use it 4wd tracks and I wanted to send it to other in my 4wd club.
Dimitri, You need to save the Itinerary before it will show up as a file. You can create Itineraries without having to save them. If you save it the file will appear.
People, it is impossible to solve the “traveling sales man problem” with lets saw 100-200 points. It’s NP-hard…
Looking to get a GPS system and one thing I would like to do with a GPS is to plot a lenthy trip – say a day’s outing – making multiple stops along the way, sort of a sight-seeing trip.
In my money range, say a TomTom Go 720 level, what GPS systems are out there with the feature to allow for pausing and resuming trips multiple times to enjoy the sights?
In addition, with say the TomTom 720 intinery, can you restart the trip after an unscheduled (GPS) stop? How difficult is it?
Thanks
John, The 720 would do what you are looking for. You can “pause” an itinerary by clearing the route and then when you want to resume, load the itinerary again. The locations you have already visited in your itinerary will be marked as visited and skipped.
Also, unless you want to know the total mileage or total time of the entire trip with all stops, you might not even need a GPS with such a feature, saving all of the individual destinations ahead of time, and navigating to them one at a time.
Thank you Tim
I may very well not need this routing feature. I am clearly a newbie to the GPS world. In fact this will be my first GPS system, so defining my current and future needs is difficult not knowing much about GPS systems and what they can do.
I usually try to get more features than I think I currently need, expecting my needs and interest to expand as I gain experience. The GO 720 seems to fit this very well as equivalemt features on a GARMIN cost upwards of $1200, way out of my budget. However I have read some scathing reports and reviews on TomTom in general and the GO 720 in particular, that gives my pause. Perhaps I will research other makes.
Thanks for the advice though as I can now perhaps look more closely at some of the ‘cheaper’ GARMINs that lack the Routing feature but are otherwise more than adequate.
Have you ever compiled say a “Tim’s Top Ten” list of GPS systmes?
Thansk again.
The TomTom 720 consistently receives some of the highest praise from customers for any GPS device we get feedback from. You will read good and bad reports about just every GPS company out there, including the top two, TomTom and Garmin. Whenever I read a bad review about a product one of those two companies made the first thing I usually do is seek out other reviews that person has written and see if there are any trends/biases towards or against specific companies.
I’m not saying that it isn’t possible for Garmin or TomTom to build a bad product, but it is easier to spot potential biases if someone writes a scathing review about a product that most every other consumer really enjoys.
It is for that same reason that I don’t have a “top 10″ type list at this time. While I might change my mind in the future, my attitude now is that I’d rather take a look at your navigation needs and help you pick the best device for what you are looking for rather than spoon feed you what I think the best device is which may be largely based on my own preferences.
So I see my job as to help you find the best device for your needs, not to tell you what I think is the best device for my needs.
Thanks again Tim for you information.
In message 33 I mentioned scathing reports or comments. They actually came from the gpsreview TomTom forum and some guy who reviews for some GPS magazine. He claimed TomTom typically come ot market early with an incomplete product. I subsequently read another review where a reviewer from CNET gave and 8 out of 10 excellent.
In any case I tried a pool on the forum and you I believe rightly pointed out that only people with questions or beefs show up there. Certianly there were alot of beefs.
Do you personally use the Go 720?
Is the itinery fuction a true optimizer or a destination sorter?
Does the 720 come with a comapss?
My needs:
1) Local city travel (Ottawa, Canada) where the route is unknow to me.
2) Long-ish trips where the route less travelled (scenic type route) may be desired.
3) Sightseeing where we;d planned out a days trip stopping at various interstiong spots, again not necessarily using the faster or most direct route.
No concern for bluetooth and I don’t know about the FM receiver.
ANy suggestion of the model(s) I might like to look at?
Thanks again.
I disagree about coming to market with an incomplete product. Everything in my 720 I can think of is working as designed. They probably couldn’t have been the number 1 selling GPS company in the world if they had a terrible product.
I think you saw in the forum that there are people who had some issues, and some people who were more than happy with their device.
I do have a 720, and I do use it. But the same could be said for several dozen other devices in the market. I’ve been using it more recently as there has been a huge interest in the product and it has gained more attention than just about any other device as of late.
The 720 does include a compass. The Itinerary feature doesn’t have an optimizer, you order the points yourself manually. the 720 would likely meet the needs you listed, especially with regards to planning trips to take specific roads. If you don’t need Bluetooth, etc then you might consider the ONE XL-S.
Is there a site where one can select and compare various TomTom units? I know on the Garmin site you can compare any model they have with another. I’ve seen some on retailer sites, like Best Buy, but the info seems rather cursory. It would be nice to have a site where competing company’s products can be compared.
Also, is there a description any were defining the different a company’s various lines and there purposes, e.g., the GO series as compare (in purpose) to say the ONE series. The same is true for all manufacturers. It’s very difficult to distinquish between various lines when features on the surface look so much the same.
Thanks John@
John, you can do that from the ‘Find Auto GPS’ box near the top left of our homepage.
I’m looking for a GPS device with route mapping that handles truck restrictions such as low clearnaces and weight restricted roads and bridges. Is there anyone out there using a device with these features. How does the device route the driver around these retrictions? What’s the name of the company providing the device?
Thank Tim for you info on Find Auto. What an incredible websit this is.
When comparing I see some fields highlighted in pink, others in green and some are left blank. What are the signicifances of the colour coding.
Also, occassionally I see simply a word. For example, when comparing the TomTom 720, 920 and 910 I see under POI:
720 920 910
POI Count 5000000 Millions
Is there an interpretation?
Thnaks
Yes = Green
No = Pink
Blank = unknown/manufacturer won’t confirm
“Millions” = that is as specific as the manufacturer will say… they won’t confirm a more specific figure.
Wondering why when I use waypoints the map shoes the flags as I pass them but not the address I put in? Also, no voice prompt,”You have reached waypoint number one”?
If you set them up as destinations rather than waypoints they will be announced, but then you loose some of the benefit of the full itinerary in one route. I agree, it should announce the waypoints.
Hello,
Is there a way for the TomTom One 3rd Ed to read an itinerary file? Could I make up an itinerary in say google maps then somehow get it in my TT to use on a trip?
I bought the older edition specifically for the itinerary feature, but I DO NOT have “Itinerary Planning” as a menu choice ANYWHERE. Help!
atldsl – There is, but it involves a bit of a hack that isn’t supported by TomTom and takes away a few other features in the process.
izzym – Make sure you have “full menu options” turned on. Any TomTom other than the ONE LE has that feature.
found it, thanks Tim!
I recently bought the tom Tom 720 and am very happy with it. Most decision making info I got from this website. Thank you.
A question:
At the start the 720 always seems to orient me facing east on the street where I live (Arrow direction), even if the car is in the driveway that runs north-sount.
All routes then are calculated heading east first.
My car is usally parked in the driveway and east would be a left turn as I depart. Even if the best route is say a right turn from the driveway the 720 always goes east and either takes a round about route or turns around at the first street and comes back.
Occassionally I have seen the orientation facing west but I don’t seem to be able to “cause” it to happen.
Is there anyway of changing that orientation? Essentially having the 720 start off in a chosen the direction or at least in the direction is physically pointing?
Thanks
The Tomtom one v3 does not have itinerary planning. If it is connected to a pc you can find and plan an itinerary but when you disconnect it is not available. after many emails and 3 phone calls to Tomtom they finally admitted that there is no itinerary planning on the Tomtom one. They advertised that it does have it but it certainly does not. I returned mine for a full refund
I have the TT ONE as a recent purchase. The one feature I would like, that I don’t believe it has, is to toss a bunch of addresses at it and have it give me the best route to all of them. You mentioned that some units do this, can you be more specific which do that and how well it works please? Also, it appears the TT ONE recalculates using your current route if you ignore the route it gives you, is that correct? A previous unit from a different company would tell me turn around even as I drove to the front door if I selected to take a loop route rather than the direct Interstate. I just wanted to be sure that was a real feature and not something I imagined from my few initial trips. Thanks.
Jerry, that feature is called “route optimization”. The Garmin Nuvi 700 series such as the Nuvi 760 have that feature.
Yes, if you go off the TomTom’s route it will recalculate a new route to your destination from your (then) current location.
Hi Tim,
I have a TT ONE-XL, when I reach my destination, it says you arrived, is it a way to the the exact street number to park in front of the correct address
Thanks for your help
I have a TomTom ONE GPS 3.5, with Bluetooth, and SD Card (with the maps?) and TomTom HOME V2.2
I am a new user to TomTom but and expert with Garmin 12 MAP (Marine user) GPS. I am no stranger to route planning with or without GPS.
I am wondering how to structure an Itinerary such that it will accept “no tolls” for part of the route and “yes, tolls” for another segment.
Here’s why: If I plan the “fastest route” from Fort Lauderdale it pushes me up the Florida Toll Road, the I95 through the NJ pike toll gates and etc.
If I say “no tolls”, and specify FL, to Columbia SC, Charlotte, Raleigh, Scranton PA to Danbury, CT; it detours me up into Binghampton, NY, back down by way of Albany . . about a 500 mile detour to miss a 50 cent bridge toll.
(I.E. I95 N to I26W to I77 N to I81 N to I84 E, to I90 E to I290 E, to I190 N) I’d love it if I could just put in the road list like that!!)
The other thing is, granted the TomTom will tell me when I am near a rest area, but how can I tell it to tell me where the “next” Rest Area is? So far that eludes me.
Also, comment #24 mentioned getting an ITN file from Google maps. Do I get access to the ITN file from just using Win XP File directory function and copy & past the ITN file in the ITN to the directory?
Thanks
Bob
Be careful, the TomTom one 3rd edition does not support multiple addresses or itineraries. Frank you said you got a full refund. How did you do that (This toy is useless to me).
I am having the same issue as John in post 48, at least I think I am. I would pull in to my driveway and my new 920t would say my destination was another 300 yards. Well a week went by and always had the same issue, so I decided to look up my house on Google earth/maps and found that the image shown for my address was ten houses down the street. My house shows up as a different address on the street. I figure the TomTom maps have the same issue. The quick fix is to assign the incorrect house address to Home, not my true street number. My question, how do I get the addresses on my street corrected, the actual data corrected? Thanks, great information posted here!
Mike, 300 yards is “pretty close” when it comes to current mapping margins of error. However you can change your HOME location and enter it using the ‘current gps coordinates’ rather than entering it as a physical address when you are standing in your driveway.
If you want the actual address location corrected, you would report it at mapinsight.teleatlas.com, however don’t expect it to get addressed anytime soon.
I am a real estate agent. I take clients to visit 3-10 houses on any given day. Has anyone found any gps or website that will calculate the most efficient ORDER to visit up to 10 places? They don’t have to be saved long term as plans change daily.
Roy – Yes, check out the Garmin Nuvi 700 series, something like the Nuvi 760 we reviewed which offers that function.
Additionally, you might check out this thread in our discussion forums.
Great, used the tom tom for years and never used this funtion
. Just one thing, is there a way to add “avoid part of route” to the Itinerary ?
There are parts of “Wales UK” which I like to avoid, the A4119 is a busy section, at the moment Im adding this manually, would like the route saved avoiding the A4119 all the time.
John, there isn’t a way to permanently avoid a particular street, but you can do that using the ‘find alternative’ -> ‘avoid part of route’ function on an itinerary, or just add additional via points to the itinerary to accomplish the same thing.
Hi John, thanks for a great article. I have a TomTom One (US V4). My TomTom doesnt seem to want to route through waypoints. This is especially the case if there is any amount of “doubling back” to get to the waypoint…i.e it might be a town you have to drive down a road and then back out…It just seems to ignore the waypoints. It keeps calculating the most direct route to the ultimate destinatin.
cheers
Andrew
Andrew – If it appears to be “ignoring” them– then they are not setup properly in the route. Can you describe the steps you are taking to add the points and activate the route?
Thanks Tim,
Say that i am leaving from home and going to Destination D, but want to go via B and C. I add B, C and D. I mark B and C as Waypoints and I leave D as the destination. On the Itinerary screen, B and C way points come before D.
When it calculates the route, it shows B and C as waypoints, it marks them with a flag, but the route doesnt go through them.
Sometimes with some waypoints it seems to work, other times with other waypoints it doesnt. It’s very puzzleing.
I wonder if it is something to do with using Australian maps…i.e the map version is causing the problem
Andrew
I haven’t seen the issue before, it is possible (though it doesn’t seem likely) that it has something to do with the Aussie map. What are you using as waypoints? Are they addresses, POIs, coordinates? And do they get marked as “visited” when they are seemingly skipped?
Hi Tim,
no, the waypoints arent marked as visitied when they are “skipped”.
You gave me an idea though, and it has worked. I was using this because i wanted to visit various cities on a weekend drive. So all i was putting in was the city. This works fine for destinations. You gave me an idea when you asked what i was using as waypoints….
I just tried by entering a specific address (street and number) in each location. That has worked. It now routes to each address.
thanks for the help
cheers
Andrew
I suspect in that case that when you reached within a certain distance of the town it considered it visited and moved on to the next location in the list– before you really got where you wanted to get within the town. That would go away (as you noticed) using a specific address.
Truck driver scenario
Over three days the driver will be visiting over a hundred addresses is it feasible to create a couple of POI (points of interest) folders and then navigate to them, one at a time?
TomTom 510
Glyn – Yes, you could certainly do that and not use the Itinerary feature.
Many thanks Tim extremely grateful
Well, I just bought the 730T (Europe maps) and its 2 new functions (From old 720T) are well worth the upgrade. Now fastest route takes into account local conditions (Time of day, weekend trafic etc) and im getting new routs all the time. Also the advanced lange guidance is very clear and much better than the standard screen.
Tomtom give me the latest map update for free, and already they upgraded the OS
- and already there is a problem with the USB detect 
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Itinerary planning as before, and now I know how it works I use it all the time.
Just one problem, same on old 720/710 “navigate to” > POI > You cant select a POI without picking “Near end” “On the way” etc, so if the POI is 400 miles away, you can get it without adding a city, I plan a jurney from one end of the UK to the other, then I can pick a POI I want
Does the tomtom have graphics as to depicting lakes, ponds, streams etc. Also their names?
Bob – Yes, depending on the size.
im planning a very long journey start piont Dover, then across to france,then thru france all the way to the south of spain.Iv tried the itinerary planning but its not working nothing stays save am i doing something wrong (gps go 710)
Hi, I’m used to TomTom V3 and V5 on a PDA. I’ve created numerous “itineraries” for business, private and holiday use, let’s say 50 or so.
Now I’m contemplating buying a TomTom One XL or GO 730 or similar. But I’m unable to find out HOW MANY itineraries (max. 10-15 waypoints) I can store inside the device(s). Can someone provide this information or point to some information source?
Storing 50+ itineraries on the PC and transferring them to the One XL or GO is fine, but useless if you are on an extended holiday without carrying a laptop with you…
Hugo, I don’t know if there is a limit on the number of itineraries that can be stored. I know I’ve loaded a few dozen in at a time, so if there is a limit I’d guess it is 50 or more.
k. so i love the itinerary planning offered on tom tom. i have one of the earlier models the GO 700. one comment i would like to make is what if im looking at houses for sale and i have a list of 20 stops. well i enter them in and tom tom creates the route for me. but it only routes them in the order i enter them. to me that makes no sense. i am obviously looking for the shortest route in between the 20 point. so as of now i have to use mapquest for a few hours at a time to route my stops then i can enter them into tom tom to use it .
If you open an Itinerary file in Notepad, displayed are Lon/Lat/Name/#
# being a number. The number tells the TomTom what the Point is, start, finish, waypoint or Stop. I think zero is waypoint, and 3 or 4 is Start or Finish (nned clarity) and one of the other numbers is Stop. I would like to be able to do my map in MS Streets & Trips, and using GPSBabelGUI, export the ITN file and edit the last digit so I control which are waypoints and which are Stops along the way. Can anyone confirm what the meaning of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 are at the end of a string is? I want to navigate to all Stops (like destingations) and have TomTom tell me that I am approaching them as I drive. Great for finding all the good points in a National Park, for instance.
As of Sept 27th,2008 I was able to link Google maps to my Tomtom via http://www.houghi.org/tomtom/ but something happened and now I get “ERROR’no coordinates. Did google maps change their website?
Today is only the 24th in many parts of the world.
Google did change to using Tele Atlas maps in the past couple of weeks. There might have been other changes as well.
I am starting a job doing multi-drop sales/deliveries. I will have up to 50 drops per day. I need to program all my drop-points at the beginning of the day, so that it will take me to each address in order. Some people say TomTom ONE doesn’t support this sort of ‘itinerary’ route-planning. It would also be useful to know which weight/size restricted roads to avoid if driving a lorry. What system would be best for me?
Just to back up what a few other people have said:
The TomTom One V3 does NOT have itinerary planning.
Can someone recommend a unit that does? It’s quite a useful feature for me and one of the main reasons I bought it (online). It’s now being returned as we speak!
Basically all of the TomTom models except the ONE 3rd Edition, ONE 125, ONE 130, and ONE 130s have it.
I like my MIO 310 for editing my itinerary. You can add and delete destinations. There is an optimize button. You can also move the destinations up or down in the trip. You can add POIs, addresses, coordinates or histories.
I just got the TomTom 740 Live and have it ready to be sent back if I can’t figure out a way to optimize the “salesman” scenario. I’m a Real Estate Appraiser and need to have a GPS that can calculate the best route for me. Why wouldn’t TomTom have this ability? Garmin does….heck even my old StreetPilot did, even my fathers really old Lawrance has the function!
Doug, see our article on Route Optimization vs Route Sorting, I think what you really want is route optimization. While some Garmin devices offer it– most do not. TomTom doesn’t offer it on any of their models.
So is there anyway to do route sorting with TomTom? I am a real estate appraiser and have to go by multiple houses for pictures and need the ability to sort the route in a logical order.
You can somewhat sort a route with a TomTom… add the locations as a custom POI, bring up the custom POI category and they will all be sorted by distance. They will not, however, be optimized.
Well that sounds like a pain. Any other GPS besides Garmin that will optimize routes?
Hi! Just bought a Tomtom Go 730. I am in advertising sales and need to use the itinerary planning feature. Is there a way to export a list of addresses from excel to the tomtom?
Connie
I am a school bus driver. I drive out in the country to houses that don’t even have mail boxes. I bought the xl 330s because TomTom support people told me it would do the following: Using the itinerary feature I can put in gps cords for the houses and the 330 will direct me in the order to pick up the students if I put the cords in the correct order. Some of the students I have to bypass and pick up after I turn the bus around at the end of a road. The 330 will mark the stops on lift side if I have passed them as visted even though I have not turned around and picked that student up. (lucky kid, gets to stay home that day)What is the best was to set up an itinerary where you have multiple stops on the same road, but have to stop in a certain order. Please help! Unit is headed back for a refund! Thanks Jim
The way to do that would be to create more than one itinerary. One of the “out” trip and one for the “back” trip. That way the triggers will still be there for the locations on the other side of the road.
Thanks Tim, will give it a try. Played with the unit a little last night using each stop as a destination. I had stoped at each house and used the “My Location” feature. This worked but there were a lot of key strokes to trigger the next stop. Will try your suggestion this pm using the stops as waypoints. Thanks for the help! Jim
I too am a school bus driver. I want to be able to lay out routes for sub drivers. Could you give me the sequence of selections on the screen to make an itinerary? I am not well versed on the computers but getting there. Thanks Rob
hi
i am asda lorry driver. have tomtom go 530. just checking with others which tomtom offers best itinery planning. i can make planning on 530, the itinery works but when i want to save it, or load it, it says are you sure you want to delete all the destinations in the current itinery. i cant understand this problem
I am a house inspector and need to visit as much as 60-150 houses per day. I would love a portable GPS system that would hold that many stops at one time and use the best possible route for each stop. I don’t want to fiddle through multiple menus to select the each destination. More importantly I would like to be able to download the destinations from my desktop to my GPS system. Is that possible with any of the TomTom units?
Do you have a computer savvy assistant? The way to do this is put the Name, Address, City, State in Excel as columns. Import them into MS Streets & Trips versions 2002-2006 Only (pick one). Nothing older or newer. Once imported, you will see where they are on a map. Pick one push pin to start with and one to end with (Right click, Route, Add as Start or Ad as End). Right click the rest and set them as Stops. Then click on the Car Icon on top row. That will show the route as a list on the left pane. Click Optimize. That will set a route that makes the most sense. You can change it afterwards by selecting a Stop on the left pane and moving it up or down. Save the file as yyyymmdd. Then, download a free copy of gpsbabelgui. That will read the yyyymmdd.est file (MS Strees & Trips) and convert it to a TomTom ITN file. You have to select these from the menu. Point to the EST file and tell it what kind of file it is from another pull down menu. Same for ITN pick TomTom ITN from pull down, and browse for a file location, and give the file the same name yyyymmdd.ITN. Be sure and add the ITN to the end of the file name you chose. Hit Lets GO, and it will create that file. Then, open Notepad, and open the ITN file. Change all the zeros at the end of the Latitude|Longitude|Name|0 to |2| except the last one, make that a |3| so it looks like this Lat|Lon|Name|2| and the last entry, your End, as Lat|Lon|Name|3|. You may have to fiddle with the length of the Name field if it is too long. Then, hook your cable up to the GPS and Computer, and copy the ITN file into the ITN subdirectory on the GPS. Disconnect when complete and hit the menu button, go right arrow to Itinerary Planning/Options/Load Itinerary and pick it off the list. If you DON’T see Strikethroughs through all of your entries, you have done it right. All of this can take some time, so I hope you have someone back at the office that can do this for you. Perhaps you could use 2 GPSs and they could be setting up Tuesday, while you are doing Monday. I would take a laptop with the addresses in Excel loaded on the map also. MS Streets & Trips displays Baloons with Name/Address/City, State (and phone if you like) but you can right click and say Show Name on the Push Pins (individually) and have less clutter on the map. You can print the map and take it with you on as many pages as you like. If you really get lost on the GPS, you can refer to the MS S&T paper or electronic map. Hope this helps.
The |2| causes each entry to be a destination, so the Stats displayed on the GPS, are to the next stop, as opposed to the last stop. Occasionally you will have to tell the GPS you have visited a stop already under Itinerary Planning, if you did not physically come close enough to the lat/lon.
Lot of work, but should make you more efficient, and worth the Office Help. May take a few times to get the office help aclimated.