Route Planner Great Britain and Europe 2004 is German-based Map & Guide's third attempt at a consumer route-planning software for UK-based users. New to this version is the inclusion of the complete Varta Hotel Guide, which is the European equivalent of the Red Guide from Michelin. Map & Guide also claims the software offers the highest-quality map material currently provided by a PC title.

The route-planner provides road maps of the UK, including city maps (for door-to-door and street-to-street routing), as well as maps of Europe (for town-to-town routing). The new version lets you plan a route from anywhere in the UK to 49 other European countries, according to Map & Guide. Up-to-date traffic information can also be accessed within the software using an Internet connection, which may prove useful when planning a route.

New features of the software include an e-mail function that lets you send maps and itineraries to friends or colleagues, an additional 180,000 points of interest (550,000 in total) indexed into 27 categories, up-to-date maps, and more print options. Route Planner 2004 is also the only route planner that lets you plan a route from door-to-door (14 million house numbers) from a UK-based address to one in a major European city, according to Map & Guide.

The software's now compatible with a standard NMEA GPS receiver a provides a constant visualisation of location, speed and driving direction on the map. You can export route lists and maps to a Palm or Pocket PC device, too. Travel plans can be customised to include refuelling, breaks and cost management, and the software's calculation engine can total journey cost in either pounds sterling or euros.

Map & Guide also offers a version, albeit dated, for Palm and Pocket PC devices. However, PalmOS 5 devices aren't supported.

Links:
Route Planner Great Britain & Europe 2004 Web site

BIOS, Oct 14, 03 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Miscellaneous