Product Reviews

Most of today's route-planning software is packed full of features alongside maps of Europe, and there's no doubting their ability to cope with any journey you'd want to undertake. By comparison, The AA's Quick Route Plus is considerably more basic and covers only England, Scotland and Wales. However, at less than £10 it's considerably friendlier to the wallet and extremely easy to use.

Just pick the start and end points from a handful of locations in each town or city and the route is calculated. The results are shown onscreen as a map along

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with a sequence of directions. Summary information including driving time, distance and costs are included. At this point you can either print the route or modify it by selecting Avoid motorways, Avoid tolls, Caravan route or Reverse route.

In short, it's good enough for the occasional UK traveller who doesn't need the expense or complexity of products such as Microsoft AutoRoute. The biggest competition to Quick Route Plus, though, comes from the AA's own online route planner at www.theaa.com/travelwatch/planner_main.jsp. It offers similar functionality but covers the whole of Europe and lets you plan UK routes by street name or postcode. Even better, it's free for all users.

However, you don't always have internet access when you are on the road and, even if you use the free online service from home before you start on your journey, Quick Route Plus is so cheap that it makes sense to load it on to a portable PC. Then, if you need to amend your journey and can't access the internet, you still have a basic package to help you find your way. For £9 it is a reasonable buy provided you don't want more detailed routes.