National Routeing Guide maps - 'for development purposes only'

[mikeg]

I do wonder what the meaning behind this is. It seems to be put there by Google. Could it be that ATOC haven't paid Google for what they should have? What was wrong with the .pdf maps anyway? And are they not paying Google when they should be perhaps?

 

[OwlMan]

I do wonder what the meaning behind this is. It seems to be put there by Google. Could it be that ATOC haven't paid Google for what they should have? What was wrong with the .pdf maps anyway? And are they not paying Google when they should be perhaps?

It is either a billing or API Error see https://developers.google.com/maps/...&utm_medium=degraded&utm_campaign=keyless#api

 

[danm14]

Google Maps used to be free to embed, then they introduced billing for it a few months ago. A lot of sites haven't yet implemented the billing code, so the watermark appears.

Eventually they'll be blocking access to Google Maps without using the billing code, but for now they still allow it but make it difficult to use with the watermark.

 

[mikeg]

Thanks for the info. At least for atoc's sake Google haven't taken the same attitude as northern for this lack of billing. It just smacks of incompetence and indifference that they can't maintain the site that determines the validity of my ticket in this manner. But then this is the RDG/ATOC!

 

[Royston Vasey]

It doesn't work anyway. Tried it for Oxford to Cambridge last week and it would only show me the route via Paddington whatever I clicked. Then crashed.

 

[ASharpe]

I noticed this in an internal system at my work the other day; but as I'm the only person who uses that feature it kind of fell on deaf ears.

I suppose google need to make a profit somewhere and they have been good enough to continue to provide functionality but with a warning.

 

[kieron]

What was wrong with the .pdf maps anyway?

I suppose the problem was that they're something which needed to be updated from time to time, but weren't used by the industry. It's easier if you only have one set of maps to work with.

There are copies of the ones they published on farehistory.info, and I have an updated version here.

As well as the issue with data.atoc.org, nationalrail.co.uk have a notice suggesting that Microsoft have degraded their map interface in a bid to get (more?) money from them. As the map zooms out if I press either of the + and - buttons (at least from where I took the screenshot), I think the map integration may still need a little work.