How to Use a Road Map

The road map is an essential tool for all things transportation. Commuters, commercial traffic, bicyclists, and even pedestrians must become familiar with road maps to plan and navigate trips at every level of detail. Locals and travelers should learn how to select the right map for the situation, appreciate features of the typical road map, learn to read the map and plot the right course of direction to a particular destination.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Road Map
• Global Positioning System (GPS)
• Internet Access

How to Read a Road Map

1. Match the road map to the situation, in terms of the correct level of detail for the location and distance traveled.

2. Identify and study the features of the road map by reviewing the legend and symbols guide.

3. Find your present location, along with where you are going by matching landmarks to the map. Maps will feature numerical and alphabetical index grids on each page that allow readers to plot points on the map against a list of cities.

4. Plan the trip by tracing routes between the two points, or entering data into a computerized global positioning system (GPS). Print off the directions or write them out by hand.

5. Verify the directions by matching movement to new reference points on the map as you make your way through the trip.

Tips & Warnings

• Consumers have access to continental, national, regional, metropolitan, and local road maps that carry varying levels of detail. Travelers are best served to purchase one detailed metropolitan map alongside one national road atlas, which breaks down continental geography into the downtown cores of major cities. Road map legends present scales, geographic north indicators, symbols, and color-coded lines to mark routes. The scale translates the distance upon the paper map into real-world conditions. For example, one inch on the map may represent one mile in reality. Color-coded lines are used to differentiate free limited access, tolled limited access, and divided, principal and secondary routes from each other. Limited access highways, interstates, freeways, and expressways are associated with interchanges and exit ramps -- marked by open squares, or detailed ramp imagery at each junction on the road map. Numerical shields and local terminology will also accompany the color-coded routes to help map-readers get their bearings. Good landmarks to use for navigation include points of interest, geographic features, major roads or even entire towns and cities. The ability to look at a map from any angle and translate the coordinates into turns and directions will come with experience. Beginners may need to physically turn the map to match the direction that they are facing to visualize right and left turns. All trip planning relates to tracing the shortest distance on the map between the two starting and ending reference points. Take care to note the type of route traveled, numerical shields, common name identifiers, directional instructions, and turns to get from Point A to Point B.
• The advent of online technology and global positioning systems (GPS) has rendered several facets of map-reading obsolete. Still, electronic and paper road maps are necessary to accompany and verify the information. Drivers must always verify accuracy by plotting movement to new reference points upon the road map and ensuring that they are headed in the right direction. Lastly, the classic road map will not alert users to traffic bottlenecks or the most dangerous sections of a city that should be avoided.

References

• Rand McNally
• MapQuest
• Google Maps

Resources

• Women and Road Maps: Intuition
• How to Read a Map