Driving time estimates: how reliable ?

I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech). But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?
Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

Sorry for such a basic question, this is the first time I am
travelling in Europe by car at a large scale. I did some driving in
Italy before, but it was limited to 70km/day, so driving times were
not an issue.

Hi

I'm sorry to tell you that we have traffic problems in Europe !


Peak times are weekends and holiday times.
We also have toll queues,
accidents and roadworks.

Expected delays are published in each country
by the road authorities. Europe wide info is available through teletext
and websites such as BBC. Local info is available by radio, but may not
be in your language.

For most long highway trips across Europe an
average of 100 km/hr including stops is achievable.You may be lucky and
beat it, but it is a good planning average for long journeys (500+ km).


Here is the national traffic info site for France : ]http://www.bison-
fute.equipement.gouv.fr/[/url]

Peter


Originally posted by
ptich
I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving
times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin
(for
Czech). But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways
?
Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?


Sorry for such a basic question, this is the first time I am

travelling in Europe by car at a large scale. I did some driving in

Italy before, but it was limited to 70km/day, so driving times were
not
an issue.


--
Posted via http://britishexpats.com

wrote:
I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech). But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?
Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

Driving times calculated by Mappy and Viamichelin take only the speed limits
into account (speed limits are pretty much enforced now over most of
Europe). Of course, end-of-the-week traffic jams, road repairs, accidents,
etc... are extra...

wrote in
om:

I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech).

I don't know how these softwares calculate the times. A good "day limit"
without risk of exhaustion and with enough time for rests are 1,000 km on
motorways, 500 km on "Bundesstraßen" (national roads), somewhat less than
that if you choose side roads.

But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?

You bet

Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

Time of day (from/to work), national holidays, start/end of school holidays
(which differ by state), and of course accidents and road constructions.
All of these are known to trigger traffic jams, sometimes unpleasantly long
ones. Certain radio stations announce traffic problems and advise
reroutings, their frequencies are signeposted along the motorways. But you
need to understand German.

Regards

--
Life in plastic
It's fantastic

http://www.wschwanke.de/ usenet_20031215 (AT) wschwanke (DOT) de

"Daniel Masse" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech). But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?
Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

Driving times calculated by Mappy and Viamichelin take only the speed
limits
into account

what are motorway speed limits please?

tim

(speed limits are pretty much enforced now over most of
Europe). Of course, end-of-the-week traffic jams, road repairs, accidents,
etc... are extra...

"Wolfgang Schwanke" wrote in message
...
wrote in
om:

I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech).

I don't know how these softwares calculate the times. A good "day limit"
without risk of exhaustion and with enough time for rests are 1,000 km on
motorways, 500 km on "Bundesstraßen" (national roads), somewhat less than
that if you choose side roads.

But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?

You bet

Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

Time of day (from/to work),

Not forgetting the particularly busy Sunday to Friday Commuters

national holidays, start/end of school holidays
(which differ by state), and of course accidents and road constructions.
All of these are known to trigger traffic jams, sometimes unpleasantly
long
ones. Certain radio stations announce traffic problems and advise
reroutings, their frequencies are signeposted along the motorways. But you
need to understand German.

In Nordrheinwestfalen and NiederSachsen you can have them in
English on some combination of:
103.0, 93.0, 96.5 or 97.6 MHz, weekdays only (I think)

tim


Regards

--
Life in plastic
It's fantastic

http://www.wschwanke.de/ usenet_20031215 (AT) wschwanke (DOT) de

schrieb:

I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech). But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?
Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

I just checked a few routes that I regularly drive in Germany, and Mappy
seems rather optimistic.
Apart from the question whether there are traffic jams on the highways
(which there certainly are), it is wildly optimistic about the time
needed to drive off the highway into the cities.

T.


Sorry for such a basic question, this is the first time I am
travelling in Europe by car at a large scale. I did some driving in
Italy before, but it was limited to 70km/day, so driving times were
not an issue.

wrote in message
om...
I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech).

I find that viaMichelin is optomisitic about its timings. Driving a modern
car with fairly good performance, I would normally add at least 25% to the
times for motorway travel, and 50% for short journeys or non-motorway
travel. However, that makes no allowance for unexpected holdups.

Colin Bignell

wrote in message . com...
I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech). But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?
Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

Sorry for such a basic question, this is the first time I am
travelling in Europe by car at a large scale. I did some driving in
Italy before, but it was limited to 70km/day, so driving times were
not an issue.

Up to now I found itineraries proposed by viamichelin mostly
reasonable, time estimates definitely feasible with a decent car.

But: during vacation time, expect MAJOR traffic jams on the
main highways from and to the vacation resorts. I would NEVER
try to drive St.Gotthard tunnel for example on major vacation
departures or returns (for this Easter break jams up to 14 km!),
I am not driving a car on most of the highways in Switzerland
on saturdays and sundays during close to all vacation holidays
(especially february and march for skiing resorts, july and
august for summer vacations) and try to follow the same rules
for Austria (transit traffic comparable to Switzerland) and
Germany (with border crossing still being a slowdown or longer
stop, especially when entering "Schengen area").
Best thing is to get updated recommendations by national
car drivers associations (and their websites), have a decent
map and listen to traffic information.

Websites with traffic-jam information
http://www.verkehrsinformation.de/
http://www.oeamtc.at/index.php?type=menu&id=0280

German Automotive Association (www.adac.de) is making traffic
information available exclusively for members!

Have a safe and great trip

J.E.(Hans)Rotzetter jer(at)iprolink.ch

"j.e.r." wrote in message
om...
wrote in message
. com...
I built my itinerary pretty much counting on the driving times
generated by Mappy (for Germany and Austria) and Viamichelin (for
Czech). But is there such a thing as traffic on European highways ?
Should I make some adjustments for weekdays, or for weekends ?

Sorry for such a basic question, this is the first time I am
travelling in Europe by car at a large scale. I did some driving in
Italy before, but it was limited to 70km/day, so driving times were
not an issue.

We spent 6 weeks driving through Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium
and back to Germany and all of our triptychs were plotted out in advance
using the Michelin site. We found them to be reasonably accurate as to
driving times. The only problems came when we didn't take normal traffic
into account - like the total traffic jam outside of Florence due to the
conjunction of road work and rush hour that added a good 3 hours onto that
leg of the trip.
We don't speak Italian so listening to local traffic reports wasn't going to
do us any good but otoh, even the traffic jam was all part of the
experience.
Carole