Online Route Finders Tested

On the road, when you want help getting from A to B, a sat-nav is hard to beat. But when planning a trip, there are better alternatives that won’t even cost the price of an atlas. 

Online route planners can even take the place of a sat-nav, as the best allow you to print a chosen route with a running mileage total and pictures or diagrams of every junction. You can also tailor your route to suit your preferences, plus calculate the cost. And with a choice of maps, including satellite views, you can see just where you are going – not always the easiest task with some sat-navs. So which is the virtual victor? We logged on to 12 of the best to find out.

The test

Even though they cost nothing to use, these websites still need to deliver – so we looked for easy route setting, with options such as the ability to avoid motorways, plus the simple addition of waypoints. Also, they needed to give a range of maps and views, plus a print-out that could be used in the car. 

As in our Issue 1,064 test, we used two routes to assess each site: one across country, and the other going from near Cambridge to the Auto Express office in the London congestion charge (C-Charge) zone – an address surrounded by a complex network of one-way streets. 

How can something this good be free? These websites are excellent tools, whether you’re planning a weekend break or a business trip. Google easily hangs on to its Best Site crown – it ticks just about all our boxes. Sat-nav giant TomTom has got its act together with its online offering, and is the best for journey timing, thanks to its traffic database. Completing our top three is Microsoft’s Bing, with its revitalised Multimap site. This was the only service on test to provide maps from Ordnance Survey.

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