If you already have PC-Travel Version 1 then you should consider upgrading to Version 2. It is not expensive, $295 right now, and you get many new features. Here are a few of them:

Mapping
This is clearly the major new feature. If you collect your data with GPS receivers then you can edit your run data on a street map. Each second of data is plotted as a point on the map; you can color code the speed of the vehicle to easily see areas of congestion. You can trim the start and end of a run, insert or remove nodes, and move data points. You also can verify that the data was collected at the proper locations at the proper times. If you don’t have your own maps you can get them for free on the Internet. This feature changes the way you collect your field data; you no longer have to start and stop each run carefully, and you don’t have to mark nodes while you are driving. This makes the data collection much safer and easier.

Variable Normal Speeds
Total Delay is the difference between the actual speed as measured in the field and the ‘ideal’ or Normal Speed as we call it. Occasionally this Normal Speed will change from node to node. There may be a change in speed limit, or a change in road type, or a school zone. Previous versions of PC-Travel just used one value of the Normal Speed which would be used on all segments. Now you can set individual speeds for each segment, as shown here. This makes the calculation of Total Delay much more meaningful.

Heading & Direction
One of the parameters that is output from GPS receivers is the Heading, a number from 0 to 360 that shows the direction the vehicle is going each second. This is now stored with the data in the field and shown on the View GPS  Data  screen as shown here. The Heading is also available on the street map when you edit your runs; when you select a point on the map one of the stats shown is the Heading. This is useful to make sure the run you are editing is going in the direction you think it is  (it is not difficult to get confused when you have lots of runs to organize).

There also is an option in GPS2LT and GPS2PDA to set the direction for the next run you do. This direction is stored with the data and shown on this screen in the Dir column. The software adds the Dir information to the run name when it creates the run files from the field data. This makes organizing your runs a little easier.

PC-LOS
When you upgrade from Version 1 of PC-Travel you actually are upgrading to PC-Travel Software Suite, which includes the PC-LOS application. This software is used to measure  the Level of Service at signalized intersections. If one of the main reasons you use PC-Travel is for signal timing studies, then you might be interested in this software as well.

Of course one of the main reasons to upgrade to Version 2 is to get all of the new features that will be added to the software in the future. The Version 1 code is now frozen; we will fix bugs as they surface but no new features will be added to Version 1.