Active route option in route selection menu
 

Has anyone noticed this as an option in the route selection menu. (NAV and TV, Version 27.1 and 2006.2 DVD with speed cameras) It is possible to check the box with either short or fast route, maybe others I didn't try.

Does anyone know what it does and what criteria it works on? Does it adapt to TMC info?

I tried it today in Bristol and it immeadiately re routed me to my destination, but I don't know if it was quicker or faster or even shorter because I don't know the area.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Oscar!

Was it "active route" option or "dynamic route". If the latter then it evaluates all traffic (via TMC) on all routes that affect your journey then calculates the quickest route based upon prevailing traffic conditions and road speeds, etc.

However, it's only as reliable as the TMC data it receives, and this can be pretty unreliable on Classic FM.

As the name says, "short route" is the route simply with the miminum number of kilometers. "fast route" is the route that takes the least amount of time, taking in consideration the known speed limit of the roads.

Both are independent of TMC, and are independent of the other settings "allow/deny highways", "allow/deny tolls", ferrys, etc. (TMC might reroute automatically if a road is closed, but doesn't do when there is high traffic - instead, it tells the driver about the conditions and asks if it's to reroute or not).

Imagine an extreme case where from point A to B one can go through a small village at 30KM/h for a short distance, or around the village through the highway at 200KM/h for a slightly longer distance. Guess where one would go with each of those selections ;)

In Germany, I've selected "Fast+highways", because I'd rather use the good highways and speed up a little, even if only for some half a dozen kilometers.
Outside Germany, I'll probably select "short" and/or "deny highways" because the stress of entering a highway and having to go max 120KM/h doesn't compensate the pleasure of slowly cruising at 30-50KM/h through small villages and look at the history of them, the coffees and restaurants, etc.

Your best bet when 'Dynamic Route' is ticked, is to leave only 'fastest' ticked. You won't get prompted to re-route, it will just calculate a new route automatically and make an audible warning "traffic congestion ahead.... the route is being calculated."

If it cannot find a better route without congenstion, it will make an audible and visual warning to this fact and the existing route will persist.

Dynamic Route is only available if you have the latest (September 2005) BM53 (US) or BM54 (Europe) radio module. If you have an older one it's not an available option.

Thanks for your replies. Yes, I did mean dynamic route. I didn't realise you could check more than 1 option. Makes sense now you raise it. I'll try the different options.

This option only became available when I got the software upgraded to 27.1 (Now out of date, typical) by the dealer.

Thanks again, great forum,

Oscar.:)

Interesting - I don't see this option at all on a 2005 X3 with a 2006 CID radio. I'm running v28 with Europe High 2006-2 and TMC works fine. I thought the X3's radio was equivalent to the BM54 ?

Dynamic routing does seem to work by default though as we're following a route - the system will reroute if TMC suggests a new hold-up on route.

I assumed my radio was the very latest - although only one tuner, it does support MP3 ID3 tags for the dash CD drive - I'd be surprised if this radio didn't support the dynamic route option you describe.

Could this be another coding option that only dealers can activate ?

Could you please post a picture of the route selection menu options

Here you go :

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard...W/DSC_2682.jpg

Thanks Richard

I can't see that option at all in the X3, its not listed in the X3's on-board computer manual either. I tried changing radio service options but had no effect. My X3 has 50-05 73 software in the radio which I believe is very recent (I had it coded after the Sat Nav retrofit a few weeks back).
Looks like another feature that only works cars with dual tuners :mad:

Do you know the build date of your X3? The new radios, that support Dynamic Route, were made after September 2005.

My X3 was built in Sep 2005 but I swapped the standard Business Radio for a more recent Nav CID control radio that came via ebay from a crashed US Z4. Build date for new radio is 01/2006. I used the radio service menu to swap over from US to Europe and to turn on RDS etc. All seems fine with this - no problems with FM, TP, RDS, AM etc - all ok. I suspect this is another software coding issue - perhaps the radio wasn't updated when my Mk4 was coded after the nav retrofit. I'll check with dealer.

Thanks for your help.:thumbup:

The US radio is a BM53 (Europe is BM54), maybe Dynamic Route is not supported on that as they don't have TMC. There are also some other differences in the way it works. For example, do you get a list of CD preset numbers (P1:CD1, P2:CD2 etc.) when playing from a CD Changer, or is the bottom section of the Nav screen blank?

Yep. BM53 doesn't support TMC or dynamic routing.

I'm not sure the BM53/54 differences apply to Z4/X3's - I may be wrong but my radio supports TMC fine. For example, if plan a route around the M25 or to Heathrow T1, I immediately see hold-ups and missing lanes and the Nav warns me of this, and reroutes if the delay warrants a new route. It may well be doing this automatically en-route (I haven't yet experienced this but wife claims it works ok) which makes this dynamic route option unnecessary anyway ?

Looking at realoem, the Z4/X3 CID (central info display) controller part (the CD/MD radio) numbers seem the same irrespective of what country you're in. I don't have a CD changer, I use an icelink plus system instead - this works fine with the radio. The radio only has single tuner though - as soon as I switch to Radio 2, (from CD, Icelink) the TMC icon goes from Green to Red as Classic FM is no longer available.

What I find really frustrating in the UK is the total lack of knowledege within the dealer community and BMW customer service in Bracknell of these features - big thanks to you guys at X3/5world - this really is the only place to get accurate info regarding these nav systems.

Thats a very good point. The X3 and Z4 Nav systems, although still I-Bus based are a little bit different from those found in the X5, E46, E38 and E39. You are indeed correct that realoem states the same part # for USA and European cars. Actually the fact that the radio has a single tuner in it, now doesn't surprise me that its the same part # for Europe and the USA. Have you ever checked the service menu for this system. Perhaps setting the "area" determines if TMC features are enabled/disabled in the radio itself. Obviously the NAV computer would also need to be in Euro mode. Interesting ....

Sorry for resurrecting this old post, but it seems to be a very interesting point about the BM53 radio that might(!) support the TMC.

Since the last post in 2006, it seems that a lot water went under the bridge and the US now may have the TMC broadcast on various radiostations stateside.

I am wondering about the details of this particular hardware setup that has been used here - up to this point it has been accepted that the BM53 will support the Sirius and the ID3 tags and whatnot (in latest firmware) but will NOT support the TMC, and the BM54 will not support Sirius but will support the TMC.

From your post it is evident, that BM53 is supporting the TMC - can you elaborate on this a little bit more?

hoping that you remember the set up, as the chances that you still have the same car are slim to none... lol...

:)

Remeber that for TMC to be any use at all the map disc must contain the TMC codes and the road references that are sent in the TMC messages from the radio. So even if the BM53 did support TMC (which I'm 99% sure it does not) you'd still need a compatible map disc, which is not available.

How would a disk manifest itself if it had the TMC data on it? Is there a separate file with a "TMC" name in it?

As I stand at present time, with the US hardware and the US map disks (I think 2011 or 2012, on 2 DVDs as opposed to only single DVD as it used to be before), I only have a greyed out "Traffic Information" option, which is not selectable.

I don't know for sure, but I believe it is encoded into the main map database file.

Hi - I do indeed have the same X3 and it is running just fine !

To be honnest TMC broadcasts in the UK are rarely useful - they're always out of date in my experience and I tend to ignore them and stick to the normal route. Later X3's have a dual tuner radio for sat that continued to monitor TMC broadcasts even while you're listening to another radio station.

Thank you for replying.

I was wondering, if your hardware setup, is indeed as you had it described once - the US spec BM53, and a MK4 nav computer. Obviously, the UK has the TMC, that is broadcast on the Classic FM and the US may or may not have the same type of the TMC system (broadcast on various stations, as there isn't a single frequency nationwide station).

Given two of the variable still not being confirmed, the TMC broadcast and the TMC data on the disk, I wanted to confirm at least the hardware - granted, that I might never be able to use the TMC in the US, sometimes I get to travel around the world and get to take my car with me, so maybe, I might be able to use the same hardware in some other country (which might have a better TMC operation than, say in UK... lol)

would you be able to describe in higher detail your hardware set up and your experience with using the system?

Being in a different country sometimes is hard to comprehend things that are obvious to a native...

I bought the radio secondhand on ebay from a Canadian seller - hence assumed it was not a UK / European spec. However, it does have an AREA setting so must be BM54.