Sunday, 23 October 2016

Migration to Mapbox Services and Brexit Price Changes

In our previous blog post we mentioned that some of the Google services that Speedy Route is built on now have different licensing terms than in previous years.

Commercial websites such as Speedy Route have to pay to use Google's services by purchasing an (expensive) license, and we have done so annually for the 3 years we've been online (since 2013). Google's new license terms monitor usage of interactive websites such as Speedy Route in a different way than previously, such that the license is 'used up' much more quickly than before. In fact, this year's licence was used up in just 3 weeks instead of lasting a full year, even though Speedy Route had not changed.

Google Maps has been a large part of Speedy Route's story over the last 3 years, and we couldn't have got this far without them. However, Google's new licensing terms are prohibitively expensive, and we would have to at least double our prices (e.g. to $100+ for a monthly subscription) to continue using Google Services.

Speedy Route is therefore pleased to announce we have now migrated to a new mapping platform, provided by Mapbox and OpenStreetMap technology. There should be very little difference to you, our customers, as the functionality and operation of Speedy Route remains exactly the same as before. The displayed map now looks slightly different as it is a Mapbox map and not a Google one. The only casualty is Real Time traffic calculations, which we can no longer offer as Mapbox does not currently provide this information, but this may change in the future.

We have also taken this opportunity to update our British Pound Sterling prices in the wake of Brexit to match our U.S. Dollar subscription prices (which have not changed). As a U.S. corporation our costs are in Dollars, and we occasionally adjust our international prices to match.

Our subscriptions are still excellent value at £38 or $46.50 per month, and we hope the 'peek behind the scenes' above shows how we keep working hard at Speedy Route to provide you with a competitively priced service.

If you have any comments or questions about the new look Speedy Route, please feel free to contact us by email or on Twitter.

17 comments:

  1. Ah, this is terrible. I just tried to use it for the first time since the change to Mapbox, and it's almost unusable. Previously, just typing the business name into the route box, it would seem to smart search and only display those around you. For example, if I started in New Haven, CT, and searched for a specific McDonald's on to add to my route, it would display a list of McDonald's in the area. Now for some reason, I'm getting locations from across the country, and having to type in physical addresses, which is very inconvenient for how my route is mapped and visited. Would have gladly paid higher price to keep Google :-(

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    1. Hi, thanks for getting in touch,

      The drop down popup of suggestions should still appear as you type.

      Do you have an example of an address you are typing / trying to find?


      Regards
      Speedy Route, Inc.

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    2. agreee completely with SafetyDancer. if this continues -- this platform is unusable for me.

      Jed - yearly subscriber

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    3. I completely agree, this exact thing is happening to me. It takes twice as long to enter things in and is not user friendly at all. As a paid subscriber this is very frustrating. Hope you guys can fix this issue (I read all about the money situation and it's not fair) because if not, I will be looking for other options. I did send an email hoping to get some suggestions on how it can operate like it did.....

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    4. We are working on changes right now to improve the geocoding (typing of addresses and conversion into co-ordinates), and these changes should be rolled out in the next week.

      Regards
      Speedy Route

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  2. Brutal change. Use this site on a weekly basis. Now, none of my business locations or schools that we service pop up automatically. Examples include: Adams City Middle School, Arapahoe Ridge Elementary, Meridian Elementary all north of Denver, CO.

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    1. Also won't even recognize full addresses of schools. Example: Arapahoe Ridge Elementary's address 13095 N Pecos St, Denver, CO 80234 isn't recognized even when entered manually.

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    2. Hi UnhappyMapper,

      The street address of the Adams City Middle School if you type:

      E 72nd Ave, Commerce City, Colorado 80022, United States

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    3. Here's some more background on our change from Google Maps services to Mapbox services:

      As mentioned in the blog post, Google have changed their licensing this year, and now charge 15 times more than they used to. That’s an increase of 1400%, or to put it another way, they charge now more in a month than they used to for a year.

      The license amount charged by Google actually now exceeds the entire revenue earned from subscriptions and advertising on www.speedyroute.com. As such, we simply cannot use Google Maps anymore, as our revenue does not cover the cost of a new Google licensing bill.

      This left us with two options, either:
      Change to Mapbox and the services they provide (which are still over double the old Google licensing costs), or:
      Shut down and close the Speedy Route service and website.

      We chose to go with Mapbox, there is no other option we can currently provide.

      Google's Geocoding service (address finder) includes results from their 'Places' database including public places such as schools. The Mapbox Geocoder includes most street addresses, but may not be as extensive as the Google service.

      We have also submitted a support request to Mapbox to see if the 'proximity' search results for addresses nearby can be improved.

      Best Regards
      Speedy Route, Inc.

      www.speedyroute.com

      548 Market St #72519
      San Francisco, CA 94104-5401

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    4. I think everyone completely understand the licensing issues from Google, but when making such a major change to a platform and service a lot of us rely on and pay for, perhaps more advanced notice or a more deliberate rollout with a beta phase to heavy users would have made the transition easy, if there was time to allow for it.

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  3. Quite broken. Full addresses no longer work. Typing business name no longer works. Sounds like Google just put you out of business.

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  4. Hi all, is there any fix coming? I don't know if all these issues are completely related to the switch from Google, but now when I click "Add Location" to add multiple blank places to enter a location and type an address, nothing comes up in the search results. So I type the address with the exact format used in the default 4 boxes that appear, click calculate route, and it just adds the city, not even the address, from all the additional location boxes I added. This is happening on Chrome. Is there any fixes in the works out there?

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  5. Hi SafetyDancer,

    we have made several changes and updates to Speedy Route in the last few days, which should make address resolution much quicker and more reliable, for both manual typing, and bulk import. Give the site a try again now we have made these changes, and see what you think.

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    Replies
    1. Hi,

      Thanks for the reply. Still not working on Chrome for me. I cleared cache and cookies from browser, logged in and logged out. I manually enter my starting address, and the search box populates with suggestions. When manually entering my route, no suggestions pop up, the box just remains grey. :-( Really really need this today, I have so many places to visit and a flight at 6:30AM tomorrow, so time is of the essence. Do you have a support number? Live chat? Anything?

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    2. Our support phone numbers are in this blog post: http://blog.speedyroute.com/2015/07/speedy-route-support-line-phone-numbers.html

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    3. Hi SafetyDancer, we have become aware of an issue caused by a recent change. The initial 4 location boxes and start location populate correctly. As you add new locations, the last added location also works correctly, but previously added ones do not appear to do so. We are working urgently on a fix for this, but in the meantime if you add your locations one at a time you should be fine.

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    4. The 'all but last added' dropdown type-ahead problem has now been resolved. All type ahead dropdown suggestions now work for all address location boxes as they should. Please report any other problems you encounter!

      Best Regards
      Speedy Route, Inc.

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