GPS Cartography for Morocco: OSM vs. Garmin City Navigator
 

In another discussion here on HUBB, I mentioned that I had purchased Garmin's 'City Navigator Morocco' cartography for my Zumo 660, and I would report back to everyone what my experience with that map product was.

I started my Morocco tour with Open Street Maps (OSM) Morocco installed, but after a few unpleasant surprises on the first day when I was routed down dirt trails and had to ford a small river with my ST1100, I downloaded Garmin's City Navigator (CN) for Morocco, and used it for the remaining 10 days of my tour.

Here's my impression of how the two cartographic products compare:

Ease of Use
The advantage of OSM is that you can easily load it onto a computer if you want to use it with BaseCamp or MapSource. CN can't be loaded onto the computer, which means it can only be used with BaseCamp (not with MapSource), and then only when the GPS unit is connected to the computer by USB cable.

Cartographic Detail
Both OSM and CN appear to have pretty much the same roads on them. It's possible that OSM might have more 'trails' (off-road information), but I didn't investigate this, because my ST1100 is pretty much a pavement-only motorcycle.

CN contains far more 'road attributes' than OSM (paved vs. unpaved, road width, speed limits, etc.). This is important if you want to be able to rely on the GPS device to create routes for you. It is less important if you intend to create your own routes (in other words, if you don't need or want auto-routing).

Other Details
CN displayed the speed limit for roads on the GPS device, but it was not always accurate and could not be relied upon. OSM did not support display of the speed limit on the GPS device.

Conclusion, Summary
Both products display pretty much the same 'picture' on the GPS device. This means that if you plan to navigate primarily by reference to paper maps, and just use the GPS device to confirm your location, there is no advantage to spending $100 on CN when you can get OSM for free.

CN does a much better job of auto-routing than OSM, most likely because CN contains more invisible 'road attributes' than OSM does. This means that auto-routing preferences you have set, such as 'avoid toll roads' or 'avoid unpaved roads' will be respected, and you can put a fair amount of trust in the route that the GPS device calculates.

But, if you plan to create your own routes by stringing a number of waypoints together and then having the GPS device 'connect the dots', so to speak, I don't think it would be worth the $100 to buy CN.

Bottom Line: If you intend to heavily rely on auto-routing, get CN. If you intend to create your own routes, or simply use the GPS to confirm your location as you navigate by reference to paper maps, OSM will do the job at no cost to you.

Hope this info is helpful to others in the future.

Michael

OSM .. a wide product range.
 

OSM has a large number of 'products' available.

The OSM data base has the capability of storing the road properties of

• maximum speed
• surface type (paved, unpaved, concrete, asphalt, grass, dirt, sand etc)
• number of lanes

as well as features such as fords (and many others). They may be added or edited by anyone, anywhere ... the only requirement is that the data complies with the OSM terms (easiest if free of copy write). I have no idea if OSM Moroccan data has that level of detail, I suspect some of it does and other bits don't. And even when entered .. some of it will be out of data.

The smart phone product Osmand (now available for both android and Iphone) will display paved/unpaved .. even distinguishes between asphalt and concrete! And it has a routing option to avoid unpaved roads.

Summary
OSM is many things. It is capable of doing a great many things too, if the data has been entered into the data base AND if it is used by the end product.

----------------------
Been updating some OSM data .. places where I've been had dirt roads .. but now are paved as seen by the satellite view. The last time I was out that way there was a new mine .. suspect that is the source of the paving ... cheaper for them to pave the road rather than repair the trucks/trailers and they get to use it when wet!

The Chinese in particular are doing this right across Africa, or at least where ever they are extracting useful raw materials for their industries.
Some say that the road construction is designed to last about as long as the raw materials are available (the usual UK design criteria for highways is some 30-40 years before major maintenance is necessary - nothing lasts for ever).

And, yes, OSM is a phenomenal enterprise.

The technique here:

http://garminmontanagpsr.wikispaces.com/Clone+GPSr

worked with a copy of CN North Africa that I downloaded onto a micro SD card for use in a Garmin Montana. I cloned the GPS onto a SD card so there was no need to plug the GPS unit in, just have the card in the computers card reader

My experience with OSM has been good to date, turn by turn navigation in Europe and Morocco has been error free. I now use OSM is preference to the old garmin city navigator maps I have.

I think sometimes people not used to Morocco expect all the roads to be paved when the reality is a road can be paved one year and then after the winter weather resemble a dirt track

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the quality of the roads in Morocco. Any paved road I travelled on was generally in very good condition.

My only criticism of Moroccan roads is specific to the unpaved roads (not unpaved tracks, but unpaved roads) - it would greatly improve things if the local municipalities graded the unpaved roads from time to time.

Michael

We're kind of digressing from your good report on your findings with the different nav options.

Some roads are unpaved because thats they way the country operates, the costs of paving some of these is prohibitive for a country with a low GDP and very high unemployment levels. The N12 still has sections that are unpaved and this is a major highway for the south of the country.

Progress on surfacing roads in Morocco is very fast at present mostly due foreign investment but events like last years flooding can wash away even major highways over night, repairs in the remote areas can be difficult to facilitate quickly if the equipment and materials aren't avialable locally. That said the authorities and locals are very good at making do with what they have.

TBh a lot of us would rather they slowed down the paving of the good routes and leave more piste