Re: Location data is useless...
Routing algorithms can be strange. Almost all route-finding sites want to take me through a notorious bottleneck for any destination to the SW. Almost anyone local will take an alternative route. I'd turn right out of my gate for either their route or the right one but that variation of their route goes over a weight-limited stretch of road. Their version would have me turn left. Taking that option I'd have to turn right at the end of the road. That's a sharp reflex angle. They have me turn left and then do a reverse turn at a side road a few hundred yards further on.
Clearly they're coming up with an HGV route which I suppose is better than coming up with a car route for an HGV driver.
None of that, however, explains the situation some years ago where at least one site came up with a route which turned off their preferred route, headed of to a rad with a dead end a few miles further along and a few hundred yards later turned in what is, in fact, a private yard to head back to pick up their route again.
A few days ago we went to the Black Country Museum in Dudley. All the sites recommended a route for the last few miles leaving the dual carriageway and going through what looked like some sort of rat-run. It worked as a route but it's difficult to say why. Can anyone who knows the area explain why they would recommend turning off the A463 onto Vulvan Street etc rather than carrying on to the end and then taking the A4123?