Sat Nav Correction

If your community is concerned about drivers following a sat-nav taking large vehicles down narrow roads, you can report this and other issues via the web to Navteq, the main publisher of sat-nav databases.

Browse to http://mapreporter.navteq.com

Use the search box to find the place you want to report on or click-and-drag the map.

On the left of the web page are 4 main categories:

• Point of Interest. Here you can record or make changes to a shop, business, or other Point of Interest (POI). You can promote your community by listing local businesses as people often use their sat-nav as a 'Yellow Pages'.

• Address Marker/Location. Make changes to the location of a house or building.

• Road or Road Feature. Here you can add, edit or remove roads and road features such as signs, one-ways, or restrictions.

• Other not listed.

But if you right-click on a road itself, a dialogue box pops up:

• Edit details of this road

• Exit/Roundabout is new

• Turn restrictions have changed

• Signs are different

• Other categories

Click ‘edit details of this road’ and you will get a choice of:

• Edit Road Segment Details

• Data is correct, I want to report something else

If you click 'road segment' you can report any one-way restrictions, change the class of road, note any vehicle restrictions, the type of road surface and describe the house numbering. Quite often this data will be blank and so you will be providing a useful service to complete it.

Navteq classifies roads in their database as Class 1, 2, 3, 4. This corresponds to A, B, C, D roads. In the UK, only A and B are officially designated on signage although Highways Department will refer internally to C and D and Unclassified roads too.

If you click 'something else' you can add advice about road width restrictions or errors on the map that are not reportable elsewhere.

You can also attach photos of any errors or issues.

It is probably best to be concise and restrict your report to geographic information that can reasonably be reflected in a digital map. Therefore it is probably not much use to report “this road has a problem with speeding…” while reporting “the road is only eight feet wide at this point…” is more useful to the digital mapmakers.

Some sat-navs also use data from Tele Atlas. You can enter less geographic information on their website but this database is more detailed in POI categories. http://mapinsight.teleatlas.com/mapfeedback/index.php

To research or record local features, or if you want to use maps without paying a hefty copyright fee, you can contribute to a global ‘wiki’ map http://www.openstreetmap.org/ where you can record features of interest.