I just plotted a route across Vancouver, my home city that crosses a body of water. That body of water has two large bridges but also a passenger ferry which is inexpensive and allows bicycles. I tried to encourage inclusion of the ferry into the plotted route however the routing seems to only choose to use one bridge or another. The route with ferry is considerably quicker and less challenging. Is there a way for me to encourage its inclusion further? Or do I need to add extra data to OSM so it is aware of this possibility - if so, can someone provide some guidance in this? Cheers.
https://cycle.travel/map/journey/548640
Comments
I had a little play with this Graham.
I'm assuming one of the ferry routes is the one marked as TGT on the map
The first thing I tried was the "routes" option but this doesn't seem to be working in your part of the world. To be fair, the Routes option is brand new ... and you're in Vancouver :-)
Then I tried placing a via point on that TGT. And I think I solved your problem:
https://cycle.travel/map/journey/549585
The lesson to take from this is to be very careful where we place the viapoints.
However, as useful as this is there can be problems when CT automatically routes us across a ferry (or through a public facility like a park) and that is to do with timing. They may not be open when we roll up on our bikes!
Seeing as you're planning on a route through Germany & France and may wish to use river ferries at times that CT may not wish to use there is a simple workaround.
Add a viapoint on one side, then a viapoint on the other. Go back to the first viapoint, click on it and choose 'direct to#' where # is the number of the viapoint.
An example is here: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/549586
This can be a very useful feature for taking trains, for 'forcing' CT to go where it doesn't want to go - so long as you're sure you can actually go that way.
It can be even easier with this route
youtu.be/HtmtbDR9Hkk
Ferries are a difficult one to call because – as Hobbes says – the timing can be an issue. Some ferries run every five minutes and others run on weekends in the summer months only! So cycle.travel is a bit reluctant to use them.
From an OSM point of view, if you add the frequency to the ferry way (not relation) with the interval tag, then I’ll look at getting c.t to understand that and favour ferries that run frequently. For example, that might be interval=00:12 for a ferry that runs five times an hour.
Thank you gentlemen, these are all helpful responses. I think that I had actually tried a waypoint near to the ferry terminal but perhaps not close enough..:-( I have never added data to OSM but will look into doing so further with regards to the ferry route. For reference, it is the Vancouver Seabus. It is a passenger ferry which runs frequently (10-30min intervals) and accepts bicycles all day long - with a limit of 6 per sailing, though I have never had a problem. Its sailing schedule varies a bit through the day. www.translink.ca/schedules-and-maps/seabus https://www.translink.ca/schedules-and-maps/seabus