Satellite navigation systems send trucks down the wrong routes in Britain

Drivers end up rolling through towns on roads meant for a horse and cart. Can people please stop running into Ena Wickens's roof?

from the January 10, 2008 edition

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"A lot of continental drivers are using systems which are not equipped for heavy vehicles," says Dennis Styles of Mereworth's parish council. "The cheaper models lead them down these narrow lanes. We have horse-and-cart roads from the early 1900s and they are now taking these huge vehicles" down them.

Villages up and down the country are howling about the sudden invasion of snorting trucks filling up tiny streets originally built for carriages. Some have even asked to be "wiped off the map."

In Wedmore, southwest England, the council wants urgent action to refine satnav software to make it more sensitive – and sensible. "It's happening on a daily basis," says council chairman John Sanderson. "We've had people's properties being damaged. There are no pavements, so big vehicles have to go close to properties. We get gridlock where police have had to come along and sort it out. When we talk to the HGV [heavy goods vehicle] drivers from the continent and ask them why they keep coming through, they say they have been sent by the satnav."

Mapping companies admit the technology is still in its infancy and acknowledge that improvements need to be made. "The road network is immense" says a spokesman for Tele Atlas, an international digital mapping company.

"GPS navigation is still a new technology, and the road network changes every year. So there's a constant updating process that needs to be done. What is happening is that haulier companies are using navigation devices that are specific to passenger cars."

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Help may be at hand, though. Tele Atlas says it has launched a more sophisticated device for hauliers that can request what vehicle is being driven and then navigate them through the most appropriate route. The national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, which produces road network data for satnav software companies, is refining its maps to show routes that big rigs should avoid. The aim is to provide a more intelligent picture of Britain's roads, which are used by more than 100,000 trucks a day.

"We want to get freight route maps recommended by all the local authorities into one consistent single format, agree on it, and make it available as part of our data," says Paul Beauchamp of Ordnance Survey.

He admits that the errant trucking problem has become worse in recent years. "There are more HGVs on the road than ever before, and more and more people are using satnavs," he says. "The more they are used, the higher the number of cases becomes."

But the trucking industry is wary of efforts to "redraw" the map to keep trucks off small roads. They warn that with the extraordinary growth in home deliveries, triggered principally by the rise in online shopping, big vehicles will still have to navigate small lanes.

"It's also worth saying that improved satnavs won't themselves solve all the problems," says Geoff Dossetter of the Freight Transport Association, an industry group that represents more than 200,000 truckers. "At the end of the day, it still comes down to the driver – if he ignores the fact he's driving off a cliff or into a pond, it's his own fault more than the satnavs."

All of which means Ena Wickens will probably want to keep the name of her roofer handy.

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