Google Maps Price IncreaseFORUMS HOME SEARCH FORUMS

This totally fine with me. As a premium user I still change to OSM because it's just better. At least where I live.

It's a user maintained map and we all can make it better. I do it by keeping my neighbourhood up to date.

Yes, that's correct.  I'm afraid its not viable for us to include Google maps in our embedded maps due to the high costs and financial risks from uncapped levels of traffic.

John

Hello John, 

So even if I plot my route on google maps with the premium account it will still appear as the Street Map when embedded in my website, write?

Hi Moad - embedded maps will always default to the Street Map.  For commercial reasons I'm afraid there is no option to change this, although people can select a different map type once the default map has loaded. This is the same for both Standard and Premium members.

John

Hello, 

I have a website where I want to share the html code of some walking routes made through my plotaroute account. 

I prefer to use the  WORLD TOPO MAP as it shows the subway stations' names both in English and Korean.

However, when I plot a walking route in the WORLD TOPO MAP then share its html code into a page in my website, the map appears is the one from the "STREET MAP" Option, which has no explanations in English.

I plan to move to the premium service, however, I am wondering whether the premium membership would solve my issue.

Hi Bill - the Map Type you use to plot a route is indepedent of the Map Type for printing. There is a selection list available when you select PRINT.  We are no longer able to offer printed maps using Google maps since Google's price rises, so the Street and Terrain map options will use OpenStreetMap.

John  

When I create a route in one Map Type and then go to print it, it prints in a different map type.

P

Hi Mateusz, have you tried the other Map Types?  The Paths map or World Topo map may work better for you in your part of the world. Alternatively, the Google Street Map is still available under Premium membership - for more information about this see our Membership Options page.

John

Street Map now is unreadabl. It's very not good.

Yes, thanks Mikhail, I'd be interested in your feedback on features you'd like to see added. Ultimately there is a limit in what we can offer for free, as there are a lot of operating costs to run a website like this. We try to offer a free service that can meet most poeople's needs and a competitively priced Premium service for anyone who wants more than this. Obviously, we recognise that there are other options out there and that each will offer something slightly different, but we're doing our best to develop a good all-round product that is both competitively priced and financially viable.

John

2500 points will be enough for a track of about 300 km. For longer ones, problems with orientation begin, especially when traveling through cities.

We began to look for alternatives, https://ridewithgps.com  is certainly very expensive, apparently they have more resources, but they have implemented those few "must have" key things that I have been waiting for 2 years from plotaroute.
If you are interested I can make a separate topic dedicated to this.

Hi Mikhail, as a Premium member you won't be affected by the reduction in the points limit for Standard members - you can still save routes with up to 50,000 points. Standard members are able to se the Reduce Points feature to reduce the number of points on a route, with minimal loss of accuracy (this option is offered when the route is being saved), so long routes can still be saved under free Standard membership. 

John

This very strange for me. It seemed to me that now you can not save much on this. In any case, you could do it differently,one way, to limit not the size, but the frequency of the track. For example, 1 point per 100 meters, it is invisible for the vast majority of tracks, but would allow to continue to use your service to fans of long routes.

Hi Mikhail,

Our operating costs have risen substantially as a result of Google's price rises, not just because it is now more expensive to use Google's own services, but also because we've had to invest in replacing many of Google's services with alternatives. As a result we've had to reduce what we can make available for free, which included reducing the limit on the size of routes (larger routes cost more). I'm sorry if this is impacting you but the changes were essential to ensure that the site can continue.  

John

Hi John!

What is the relationship between the price change and the number of points stored? This change makes it almost impossible to use a free account for brevet (and other long bike routes). I advertised a lot to use your service despite many problems with it, but now it seems we will have to look for another one.

Thanks Colin.  Yes, it was indeed a lot of work! We've had to completely focus on that issue for the last few months, so that's why we haven't been able introduce any enhancements to the site for a while. However, we're now in a position to resume work on some of the new feature requests that people have put forward, so we're looking forward to getting on with that.

John

That sounds like a huge amount of work and plenty of potential for bugs to creep in - but I haven't noticed any, so very well done. 

Thanks for your support. Google's price rises are dissapointing and have been a huge diverison for us for the last few months, but now that we've completed the migration we're very optimistic about the future and are looking forward to getting back to making further enhancements to the site.

John

Oh and the Premium Member cost is still exceptional value.

This is bad news and I hope that your solutions make the site viable in the longer term.  I suppose its quite possible that open source mapping software  is  going to be forced on all members eventually and may be a necessity.  I would prefer to keep the  very good user interface of Plot a route with only Open Source Maps than lose the site.  The  ability to use street view at the same time as an open map is really useful and aids route plotting decisions.  However if the worst happens as long as I can get a gpx file I could then review the terrain on personal google map access.  Google.....grrrrr.