As well as the start and end points, MPMileCharter has a number of options that can be set:
The main options are divided into three sections: Route Calculation Options, Output Options, and Processing Options. The Shortest/Quickest Route Options are only available with the Professional license, and are discussed in the Reporting only the Quickest or Closest Destinations section.
Your option settings will be saved and used as defaults for the next time that you use MPMileCharter.
Route Calculation Options
The Output check boxes define what kind of data will be created. The default is Distances, and this will create a traditional mileage chart. You may also output Travel Times, Route Costs and/or Costs via Rate Table. Each output type will be saved to an individual worksheet in the same Excel workbook.
Travel Times use MapPoint's own driving time estimates. These are based on road speeds that can be set by pressing the Speeds button.
Route Costs use MapPoint's own cost calculation. Press the Costs button to set the MapPoint Driving Costs parameters.
Costs via Rate Table is a more sophisticated form of calculating costs that uses a Rate Table. Rate Tables are discussed on their own page. At least one of these four check boxes must be selected - ie. you must tell MPMileCharter to calculate at least one table.
The chart Distance Units can be set to Miles or Kilometers. The Time Units can be set to Hours:Minutes, Hours, or Minutes. The Hours:Minutes option will format the travel times in the form of "hours:minutes:seconds" (hh:mm:ss), whilst the remaining options will report decimal time (e.g. 1hr 30mins is 1.5 decimal hours).
The Find option lets you choose the type of route to find. The most common route options are the Fastest and the Shortest route options. Preferred Routes tells MapPoint to use the road types that you have already specified as preferred. Press the Preferences button to set your Road Preferences. Straight Line finds the "as the crow flies" straight line distance between two points. Technically, this is defined as the Great Circle distance. Note that the Straight Line option can not be used to calculate travel times or cost estimates.
'Square' mileage charts with matching source and destination pushpin sets may result in duplicate route calculations. These are controlled by the Duplicates setting which is covered on the Duplicate Routes page.
Include overnight stays is enabled if you have selected Travel Times for output. MapPoint usually includes overnight stays in the elapsed time for an overnight journey (ie. one greater than 8 hours). Often this is not necessary. Check this checkbox if you want to include the overnight stay. Clear it if you only want the actual driving times to be reported. This feature in MapPoint also includes all rest stops - both overnight stays and periodic rest stops. Therefore Include overnight stays checkbox also enables the Rest stops for ... minutes every ... hours feature. Set this checkbox if you wish to include periodic rest stops as well as overnight stays. Enter the length of each rest stop in the "minutes" box, and the period between each rest stop in the "hours" box. Note that MapPoint will reset the rest stop interval when it applies an overnight stay.
You may use any of the other MapPoint route finding options, such as 'Avoid Area' polygons. You must create any 'Avoid Area' polygons first before starting MPMileCharter. MPMileCharter will use any existing 'Avoid Area' polygons without modifying them.
