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Guided Tour: Customize Routes With Road
Preferences
You can instruct PC*MILER to either favor or
avoid certain roads when generating a route. To try this out, let’s
create a new route from Augusta, ME to Charleston, SC and then
designate road preferences around Augusta. Whole roads can be
avoided or favored using the Custom Roads Manager (Tools menu), but
in the steps below we’ll be picking road segments from the map.
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Minimize any open windows, and click the New
Route button on the tool bar to open a new route entry window.
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Enter “Augusta, ME” as the origin, “Oakland,
NJ” as a stop, and “Charleston, SC” as the destination of your
route, using any ZIP codes for those cities. Run the route.
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In the Map menu, select Frame and uncheck
Auto Frame Route.
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Highlight Augusta on the stop list and
double-click to zoom into this city in Maine on the map. Notice
that PC*MILER’s route travels on I 95 (the Maine Turnpike) going
south from US 202 out of Augusta.
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Click on the Favor Roads button on the tool
bar, then return to the map window.
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Select the RouteMap window from the Windows
menu. Zoom into Augusta again if necessary, then click on the
segment of US 201, ME 27 that runs south out of Augusta to
designate it as a road to be favored (you may have to click a
few times on different road segments for good coverage). Green
cross-hatching will appear to indicate a favored road segment.
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Now click on the Avoid Roads button on the
tool bar.
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On the map, click on I 95 going south from US
202 to designate it as a road segment to be avoided. Red
cross-hatching will appear to indicate an avoided road.
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Select Route 3 (the Augusta route) from the
Windows menu, click on the Options button and check Use Custom
Roads, then click OK. This step is crucial to running a new
route that includes the road preferences you’re about to
designate. If this option isn’t turned on, road preferences
won’t be included in PC*MILER’s route calculations.
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You’ll see that PC*MILER automatically reruns
the route using the new road preferences – your route now
travels on US 201 and avoids the Maine Turnpike!
HINT: To clear road
preferences, you have two options: you can click again on the
selected road segments – with the appropriate button selected (Avoid
Roads or Favor Roads); or open Tools menu > Manage Custom Roads and
use the Avoids and Favors tabs to delete current designations.
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