Progress Report.
I am now a week into Navigator Lite.
Setting up the street plots. Well, we are a small town, but it took me about two days to understand how to do it and successfully set up all our local plots/zones. Score: 9 out of 10. The only thing I could think of to make it easier, would be having an actual Map on screen, with a cut and paste facility. Setting up the plots is a fundamentally easy task in Navigator. Couldn't fault it. Compared to another system I once played with it took about a tenth of the time.
Setting up the driver and vehicle database - simple. I actually gave that job to one of the controllers to do. Took him about a day, in between his normal shift duties. Probably therefore, about three or four hours actual work.
Adding all the pubs, clubs, shops, factories, stations and the like. Quite a big job. Not yet completed, but simplicity itself. We are using the easy system, which just requires that you asociate the new place with a street position. So easy, we have given up doing this in the back office and will let the controllers do it as the new job comes in.
Pricing. Most of our fares are pre-set zone to zone pricing. Setting the the local fares into the system took about two hours. (And they nearly all worked first time! Bloody amazing!!!)
The initial problem I mentioned above with the street database was sussed out by Stewart very quickly, and was sorted by Jason with an entirely new Dbase within just a couple of days.
Problems? Yup, a couple of problems, but I am sorting these as I read through the manuals.
Footnote. What I am talking about here is the totally FREE Navigator Lite. So far, I have not paid a penny for the software or the support. All we have paid for, is a substantial street database which we wanted in order to make the thing perform like a £4,000 software package. And it is.
Another report next week. Who knows, I might be able to find something wrong with it.
PS. Still haven't been able to make it crash. But watch this space, as next week I will sit some of our "less gifted" drivers on it.