differences in route distancesFORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

Hi John, That seems to have done the trick. Thanks for getting onto this so quickly.  Any idea what was causing the discrepancies?  Just curious.   

Hi Liz and Tom - glad you like ths site. Thanks for reporting the mismatching distance figures in the route profile tool. We've put in a fix, so this should be OK now.

John  

See for example Route 610535.  Under Key Route Data (below the map) distance is given as 5.799 miles.  But when you expand the elevation profile (Explore Hills In More Detail), the distance is given as 5.760 miles. 

As regards estimation of total ascent, I was using OS maps online.  The estimations of total ascent seemed very high compared with those given on walking sites.  Even plotting the exact same route as someone else, or when doing a rough estimation based on contour lines, I was getting very high estimations.  Those from Plotaroute seem more reasonable. 

Can you offer an example? Although I do not see this in my routes, one possible guess is that you are looking at flat vs slope distance, assuming that yours is a quite steep route (your values would correspond to about 1,000 ft of vertical change for every mile, or 20% slope)

As regards the estimation of total climb/descent, that is purely a factor of the map resolution (distance between elevation contours back in the day, DEM [Digital Elevation Model] accuracy and resolution now). What is important is that you compare climb data from compatible sources, e.g., a topo map with 100 m contour interval is going to give you a different result than the same exact route measured on a map with 10 m contours. Likewise for DEM sources.

I've just started using Plotaroute, after finding that total ascents in other tools seemd to be grossly overestimated.  Excellent tool.  BUT, I've noticed that the distance given in the key route data (and in the list in MyRoutes) is different to the distance given in the route statistics in the elevation profile.  It seems to differ by about 0.02 to 0.03 miles for every route.  Am I doing something wrong?