S&T 2008 has limitation on how many stops it can Optimize at one t

[Ricky]

I have hand-entered addresses into S&T 2008, building a route of 52 stops. I
then click on Optimize Stops and it comes back with an error that says,
"Unable to get directions. One of these areas may not contain necessary
connectors such as ferry routes or main roads. Move one or more stops and try
again."

That sounds like one of the those ambiguous and contrived Microsoft answers
that really means, "Duh, we dunno why our application just puked." I can
assure you that there are no missing connectors like ferry routes or main
roads on this route.

What eventually works is scaling the route back to 30 stops and running
Optimize again. This is a big limitation for S&T because many routes have
more than 30 stops. I read on another thread that you can do 2 separate
routes and then seam them together but how do you know which stops will go on
which route unless you pre-sort by zip code. And that's assuming that you're
importing. What if you're entering the addresses in S&T manually like I have
described above? If you weren't able to pre-sort, you'd be doing a fair
amount of overlapping. That's a lot of work that the application should be
doing.

Has anyone else experienced this limitation? If so, what was your solution?
Is there a viable solution?

Thanks - Ricky

[unknown]

On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 12:54:02 -0700, Ricky

Post by Ricky
I have hand-entered addresses into S&T 2008, building a route of 52 stops. I
then click on Optimize Stops and it comes back with an error that says,
"Unable to get directions. One of these areas may not contain necessary
connectors such as ferry routes or main roads. Move one or more stops and try
again."
That sounds like one of the those ambiguous and contrived Microsoft answers
that really means, "Duh, we dunno why our application just puked." I can
assure you that there are no missing connectors like ferry routes or main
roads on this route.
What eventually works is scaling the route back to 30 stops and running
Optimize again. This is a big limitation for S&T because many routes have
more than 30 stops. I read on another thread that you can do 2 separate
routes and then seam them together but how do you know which stops will go on
which route unless you pre-sort by zip code. And that's assuming that you're
importing. What if you're entering the addresses in S&T manually like I have
described above? If you weren't able to pre-sort, you'd be doing a fair
amount of overlapping. That's a lot of work that the application should be
doing.
Has anyone else experienced this limitation? If so, what was your solution?

Every time I've seen this message the problem was that one of the
stops (the challenge being to find out which one) was positioned such
that no road leading to one of the other ones. Imagine an island in a
large lake, with a small village (with addresses) on it, but no car
ferry service (that S&T knows about). Put a few stops on the island
and a few stops on the mainland, and you'll get that kind of message.

This situation is sometimes also produced by errors in mapping data.
Sometimes what looks like a road is not marked as driveable, has a
small disconnect or similar - this may also cause this error.

The challenge here is find the offending stop or stops and reposition
them - it can be done by systematically removing and readding stops to
the route. This is IMHO not a "number of stops" limitation though - it
has to do with your specific stops.

Regards,
Gilles [MVP].

(Please reply to the group, not via email.
Find my MVP profile with past articles / downloads here:
http://www.gilleskohl.de/mvpprofile.htm)

[Ricky]

Thank you, Gilles, for your response. I'll try your suggestion of
systematically removing the entries until I track down the culprit. In the
meantime however, I have realized consistency in creating a data file first
in Excel and then importing that file into S&T. When I do that, I have no
problem at all, using the exact same addresses as I had hand-entered into S&T
and gotten the error. Isn't that strange?

I see you have a title of MVP. What is that designation? Are you a Microsoft
employee or affiliate?

Best - Ricky

Post by unknown
On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 12:54:02 -0700, Ricky

Post by Ricky
I have hand-entered addresses into S&T 2008, building a route of 52 stops. I
then click on Optimize Stops and it comes back with an error that says,
"Unable to get directions. One of these areas may not contain necessary
connectors such as ferry routes or main roads. Move one or more stops and try
again."
That sounds like one of the those ambiguous and contrived Microsoft answers
that really means, "Duh, we dunno why our application just puked." I can
assure you that there are no missing connectors like ferry routes or main
roads on this route.
What eventually works is scaling the route back to 30 stops and running
Optimize again. This is a big limitation for S&T because many routes have
more than 30 stops. I read on another thread that you can do 2 separate
routes and then seam them together but how do you know which stops will go on
which route unless you pre-sort by zip code. And that's assuming that you're
importing. What if you're entering the addresses in S&T manually like I have
described above? If you weren't able to pre-sort, you'd be doing a fair
amount of overlapping. That's a lot of work that the application should be
doing.
Has anyone else experienced this limitation? If so, what was your solution?

Every time I've seen this message the problem was that one of the
stops (the challenge being to find out which one) was positioned such
that no road leading to one of the other ones. Imagine an island in a
large lake, with a small village (with addresses) on it, but no car
ferry service (that S&T knows about). Put a few stops on the island
and a few stops on the mainland, and you'll get that kind of message.
This situation is sometimes also produced by errors in mapping data.
Sometimes what looks like a road is not marked as driveable, has a
small disconnect or similar - this may also cause this error.
The challenge here is find the offending stop or stops and reposition
them - it can be done by systematically removing and readding stops to
the route. This is IMHO not a "number of stops" limitation though - it
has to do with your specific stops.
Regards,
Gilles [MVP].
(Please reply to the group, not via email.
http://www.gilleskohl.de/mvpprofile.htm)

[Marvin Hlavac]

No, he's not their employee.

Read more about MVP's at www.microsoft.com/mvp

---
Marvin Hlavac
Laptop GPS World
http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/




.

[Ricky]

Thanks Marvin. I've noticed alot of your comments out on this these
discussion threads. Too bad MS doesn't pay you for your expertise. ; }

Post by Marvin Hlavac
No, he's not their employee.
Read more about MVP's at www.microsoft.com/mvp
---
Marvin Hlavac
Laptop GPS World
http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/
.

[Joe Matthews]

Hi.

I do a lot of routing, and one of my routes has over 100 on it. Optimizing
it is a must, but, every time I add the 98th address, I get that 'can't get
there for here' error message.

I have tried entering the addresses in different orders, and then optimizing
every page of addresses, and it works right up to the time I try to add the
98th address. Doesn't matter what address it is, it just says "can't get
there"

How do I get around that??

Thanks

Joe

Post by unknown
On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 12:54:02 -0700, Ricky

Post by Ricky
I have hand-entered addresses into S&T 2008, building a route of 52 stops. I
then click on Optimize Stops and it comes back with an error that says,
"Unable to get directions. One of these areas may not contain necessary
connectors such as ferry routes or main roads. Move one or more stops and try
again."
That sounds like one of the those ambiguous and contrived Microsoft answers
that really means, "Duh, we dunno why our application just puked." I can
assure you that there are no missing connectors like ferry routes or main
roads on this route.
What eventually works is scaling the route back to 30 stops and running
Optimize again. This is a big limitation for S&T because many routes have
more than 30 stops. I read on another thread that you can do 2 separate
routes and then seam them together but how do you know which stops will go on
which route unless you pre-sort by zip code. And that's assuming that you're
importing. What if you're entering the addresses in S&T manually like I have
described above? If you weren't able to pre-sort, you'd be doing a fair
amount of overlapping. That's a lot of work that the application should be
doing.
Has anyone else experienced this limitation? If so, what was your solution?

Every time I've seen this message the problem was that one of the
stops (the challenge being to find out which one) was positioned such
that no road leading to one of the other ones. Imagine an island in a
large lake, with a small village (with addresses) on it, but no car
ferry service (that S&T knows about). Put a few stops on the island
and a few stops on the mainland, and you'll get that kind of message.
This situation is sometimes also produced by errors in mapping data.
Sometimes what looks like a road is not marked as driveable, has a
small disconnect or similar - this may also cause this error.
The challenge here is find the offending stop or stops and reposition
them - it can be done by systematically removing and readding stops to
the route. This is IMHO not a "number of stops" limitation though - it
has to do with your specific stops.
Regards,
Gilles [MVP].
(Please reply to the group, not via email.
http://www.gilleskohl.de/mvpprofile.htm)

[Marvin Hlavac]

Post by Joe Matthews
I have tried entering the addresses in different orders, and then optimizing
every page of addresses, and it works right up to the time I try to add the
98th address. Doesn't matter what address it is, it just says "can't get
there"

Hi Joe,

My first thought is to suspect that a routable road may be missing somewhere
to get you to one or more of the addresses in the area.