A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

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NICK 647063
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A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by NICK 647063 »

So the new 2023 A to Z road atlas was released at today and my delivery arrived, in past years I always found A to Z to be the most updated road atlas but the last few years have been poor….

So I’ve just had a quick scan and projects like the A6120 East Leeds Orbital road which opens in the next few months so in 2022 are still shown under construction in 2023, this was never the case years ago, I was hoping they would finally have rectified the A63 that they still have passing through Halton as it’s been a B road since 2009! But nope still the same.

Also noticed at Scunthorpe the M181 doesn’t end at its new location still shown wrong, The Luton northern bypass is shown as non primary, the A5 Towcester relief road is shown under construction as B class? The new A421 that replaces the A428 from Black cat is shown.

On the whole it just seems poorly updated not like it used to be!
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owen b
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by owen b »

I haven't seen the 2023 edition, but I was disappointed when A to Z stopped showing the detail of some GSJs, and I no longer buy it every year as I used to. I still keep an old glovebox size edition in the car (2014 I think), but it doesn't see much use now that I use Google Maps for navigation. It's a shame, as for many years A to Z was by far my favourite road atlas, with in my opinion the most detailed junction depiction, the most attractive use of colour, and the best physical geography.
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IAN
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by IAN »

I wonder how long it will be before printed road atlases disappear as they won't be viable to publish due to the rise of smartphone map apps and the fact that most modern cars are fitted with Sat Nav.
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SouthWest Philip
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by SouthWest Philip »

I'm willing to bet AZ has made more of an effort to update their map than Philips has with it's 2023 range. I don't think any road opened recently, for example the A487 Caernarfon bypass, has been shown. Some new roads, like the new junction and connecting A1025 at M11 jnc 7A, aren't even shown as under construction.

It also shows the Huntingdon viaduct intact as part of the A1307 and some roads that have been open for a few years now, like the A145 bypassing Beccles, are absent.
IAN wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 22:23 I wonder how long it will be before printed road atlases disappear as they won't be viable to publish due to the rise of smartphone map apps and the fact that most modern cars are fitted with Sat Nav.
Smartphone apps are a poor substitute, of course, but Jo Public doesn't appreciate that.

It's notable how infrequently OS printed maps are updated now.

The AZ range seems to be getting smaller too. I suspect there has been cost cutting since Collins took them over.
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owen b
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by owen b »

SouthWest Philip wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 22:37 It's notable how infrequently OS printed maps are updated now.

The AZ range seems to be getting smaller too. I suspect there has been cost cutting since Collins took them over.
I'm sure that sales of hard copy road maps and atlases are a small fraction of what they were before the laptop / smartphone / sat nav era. Therefore I don't find it surprising that publishers have much less money to invest in frequent or thorough updates of their hard copy products.
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by SteveA30 »

I hope they don't disappear, I enjoy my annual 15 minutes standing in the shop reading the new edition. Very tiring though, I think they should be more thoughtful and provide a sofa.....
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the cheesecake man
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by the cheesecake man »

owen b wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 23:06 I'm sure that sales of hard copy road maps and atlases are a small fraction of what they were before the laptop / smartphone / sat nav era. Therefore I don't find it surprising that publishers have much less money to invest in frequent or thorough updates of their hard copy products.
Are they really maintaining two separate maps for electronic and paper publications? If they're keeping electronic maps up to date why can't the same up to date maps appear on paper?
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by owen b »

the cheesecake man wrote: Fri May 13, 2022 13:46
owen b wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 23:06 I'm sure that sales of hard copy road maps and atlases are a small fraction of what they were before the laptop / smartphone / sat nav era. Therefore I don't find it surprising that publishers have much less money to invest in frequent or thorough updates of their hard copy products.
Are they really maintaining two separate maps for electronic and paper publications? If they're keeping electronic maps up to date why can't the same up to date maps appear on paper?
I don't suppose they maintain two separate maps, but unless they have a substantial share of the electronic maps market I presume their overall market share and probably turnover and profits from published maps (whether electronic or hard copy) is fairly modest and falling.
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by jnty »

the cheesecake man wrote: Fri May 13, 2022 13:46
owen b wrote: Thu May 12, 2022 23:06 I'm sure that sales of hard copy road maps and atlases are a small fraction of what they were before the laptop / smartphone / sat nav era. Therefore I don't find it surprising that publishers have much less money to invest in frequent or thorough updates of their hard copy products.
Are they really maintaining two separate maps for electronic and paper publications? If they're keeping electronic maps up to date why can't the same up to date maps appear on paper?
"Electronic maps" can obviously just be a zoomable version of paper ones but vector maps tend to be far more useful in cars, given that they can be zoomed in and out in a dynamic way with details disappearing and appearing as appropriate. These do require being maintained separately, as you can't really get away with just printing a picture of a vector map at a particular zoom level. An underlying vector version is required to carry out and display routing information. The paper map manufacturers presumably didn't invest in any of this and therefore are finding their market segment dwindling and people moving away to other vector-based (and usually totally free) options.
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by mikehindsonevans »

For the past couple of years, whenever you purchase a paper map from Ordnance Survey you receive a token for access to a downloadable e-copy.

Still enjoy planning a route with a paper map in front of me.

Thanks for the warning regarding the declining quality of AZ annual updates.
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owen b
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by owen b »

I had a few minutes to kill in town this morning so popped into WHSmith and had a look. To be fair it's got quite a few other schemes not so far mentioned, including :
A30 Chiverton Cross to Carland Cross under construction
A391 Bugle bypass proposed
A47 schemes east of the A1 and either side of Norwich, plus the Norwich northern bypass completion, all proposed
Newark southern relief road
Middlewich bypass
a B road route round the west of Spalding
an A road proposed on the NW side of Haverhill
A465 Heads of the Valleys remaining section UC
A40 Llandewi Velfrey
A487 Caernarfon bypass completed
A9 Tomatin to Moy UC
A96 Inverness all the way to Fochabers :o proposed

It still has the A131 Sudbury western bypass showing as proposed, it's had that for years, I'm not sure whether there's any realistic prospect of it happening any time soon.

I didn't see any of the A66 dualling proposals. The SW section of the Lincoln ring road isn't shown.

Of course some of the long standing proposed schemes are still shown. I didn't check very many of them, but Stonehenge and Chelmsford NE are shown for example.

No doubt I've forgotten a few.
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by trickstat »

mikehindsonevans wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 03:22 For the past couple of years, whenever you purchase a paper map from Ordnance Survey you receive a token for access to a downloadable e-copy.

Still enjoy planning a route with a paper map in front of me.

Thanks for the warning regarding the declining quality of AZ annual updates.
Also, maps are useful when you just want to check one aspect of a route that you basically know without a map or satnav. Things like which number exit you need on a motorway or off a roundabout or one particular road number or name to look for at a specific junction.
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by roadphotos »

The A-Z still shows the A535 at Alderley Edge even though it was downgraded to a 'B Road' over 10 years ago, it also shows junction 30 on the A14 even though it doesn't exist. The new M11 to Harlow Link Road is shown as a 'B Road' (should be the A1025), also in Essex a 'B Road' by-pass is shown as a proposed road at Southminster even though it's not known when this will be completed because it's a housing development scheme. On a more positive note most of the road number changes in Aberdeen are shown on the 2023 edition including the A9119. The only one that isn't shown is the B985 to the Altens Industrial Estate.
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by Mapper89062 »

owen b wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 14:14 It still has the A131 Sudbury western bypass showing as proposed, it's had that for years, I'm not sure whether there's any realistic prospect of it happening any time soon.
It was planned a few years ago but got cancelled because the county council didn't consider it good value for money (which it probably isn't in that perspective, since it is a road built in Suffolk that has benefits felt largely by Essex) and got replaced by some smaller improvement schemes in the town.
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owen b
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by owen b »

Mapper89062 wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 11:18
owen b wrote: Sat May 14, 2022 14:14 It still has the A131 Sudbury western bypass showing as proposed, it's had that for years, I'm not sure whether there's any realistic prospect of it happening any time soon.
It was planned a few years ago but got cancelled because the county council didn't consider it good value for money (which it probably isn't in that perspective, since it is a road built in Suffolk that has benefits felt largely by Essex) and got replaced by some smaller improvement schemes in the town.
Interesting. I would have thought that the benefits are mostly to Sudbury in Suffolk. I appreciate that any Sudbury western or southern bypass would involve crossing the Stour valley, which wouldn't be great from a landscape point of view. I remember going to a public consultation about it in the late 1980s, shortly after the A134 north eastern bypass opened. At that time there were also two route options going south of Ballingdon to Great Cornard, then with improvements of local roads through Great Cornard to the A134. I remember that one of them involved a new level crossing across the Sudbury branch line.
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by kevinse16 »

The AA will be publishing their full range of atlases next month and I’m more than sure they will be fully updated. Despite popular belief Britain road atlases sales were at a level not seen for around ten years in the last six months of 2021
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Re: A to Z 2023 Road Atlas

Post by owen b »

Another one I just remembered on the 2023 A to Z is the north and east section of the Melton Mowbray bypass (ie. the A606 route).
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