Is there a good way to plan routes using expressways and normal roads to balance time and cost? A drive of 100 kilos costs around 2500 on the expressway and takes a bit over an hour. Using the lower roads with all the traffic and stoplights takes up to 3 times longer during the day. However, I’ve noticed there are segments where the highway and the free lower roads take roughly the same amount of time, but sometimes the highway takes half the time or less. Sometimes, it feels like I have to choose between the lesser of two evils, excessive stoplights, or expensive tolls. Sometimes I choose wrong and get the worst case scenario where I choose expressway, only for there to be traffic and end up paying a bunch for a longer drive.
There’s gotta be a most efficient mix of highway and lower roads that is average cost and average time. Is there a map or app that marks all the segments with faster speeds or less stoplights. Has anyone else looked into this?
4 comments
The car navigation system in my Nissan shows heavy traffic and traffic jams but conditions change frequently so I’m not sure how useful it is for planning in advance.
My phone navi does that. I can choose between the shortest, fastest and cheapest route → MapFactor Navigator.
My car GPS and phone GPS will both suggest new routes as I am going if traffic is starting to back up. But really, you just need to sometimes be lucky with timing or go on the route enough to understand what roads to take when.
I use NaviTime. It usually has a variety of routes based on overall best, shortcuts, alternatives, free etc. If I can get expressway tolls cut by at least 20% and the time increase isn’t any more than about 30 minutes then I’ll usually take that option.
The reality is that the only true way to economize your time and money is to find the right time of day to make your trip. If you’re trying to go back during a busy period, no combination of sneaky local and express road switching will really improve that. The biggest time savings you can make are usually with taking some lucky side streets to avoid busy intersections etc.
A decent navigation app will also do its best to find faster/cheaper routes as conditions change. I’ve definitely had NaviTime give me some bonafide routes that saved both time and money simply because it saw the expressway was getting busier, so it dumped me on emptier local roads.