TomTom Looking to Share its Traffic Data With Government

[RobBrady]

TomTom Looking to Share its Traffic Data With Government

According to What Car magazine, TomTom are planning to share huge amounts of their traffic data with public authorities.

TomTom has more than two trillion journeys logged in its database which give a good indication of average speed for roads across various days and times.

This information, collected through TomTom's Live service, could help ease congestion on our roads and reduce journey times.

TomTom's travel time data is stored in historical speed profiles across every road segment, from motorways to small local roads, giving an insight into real world traffic patterns.

TomTom claim that the use of their IQ Routes service already results in driving a different and faster route in approximately 50% of all cases. It takes into account factors such as rush hour, school term times, traffic lights and busy shopping periods.
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Robert Brady

[Bjalf]

[Darren]

You can't help wondering how much of the other 50% driving a slower route
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Darren Griffin

[Greenglide]

But if IQ routes direct a sizeable number of drivers to the "faster" routes they will get clogged and be slower than the original route which will now be faster because the traffic has moved

Surely these things only work if a small minority of the traffic uses the "faster" routes. Unless, of course, the Government will look at the TT data (given free ) and decide "we need a new / improved road here.

Of course road improvements tend to be a proof that they arent needed due to the increased delays over a couple of years while they are built - look at the works on the A1 at Leeming, Dishforth etc and the widening of the M25 car park again

Is this a self fulfilling prophesy or waste of time (a temporal anomoly )
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TomTom Go 540 - V9.058, Map GB & Ireland 860.3101
TomTom Go 520T, V8.351, TTS V7, Map GB & Ireland 855.2884
Nokia 5800 with Google Maps & OVI Maps
Google Nexus One with Google Maps & NDrive

[PedroStephano]

Nope - I don't get it. Trillions of journeys logged just shows the average conditions for that trip for that time of day. When I make a journey I want to know what the traffic conditons are *now* then adjust my route to avoid any delays. Surely in these days of smartphones, someone could build an app feature that continually updates location and speed, sort of like the TrafficMaster system but better - then our traffic data would be realtime; any route-crunching algorithm could take into account the jams now, not where they have been on average over the last x years.
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iOS rokcs (but my typing - well....)
@PedroStephano

[Darren]

They have, it's called HD Traffic

IQ Routes does at least allow the additional weight of traffic during rush hours on some routes to be taken into account. Living in the SE, some of the routes and indeed the ETAs used to be laughable if they used any of the commuter routes during rush hour.

HD Traffic is a great idea and should work in practice, but I've never found it that accurate or reliable. Other swear by it.
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Darren Griffin

[PedroStephano]

....hmm - editor of PGSW says never found Traffic-HD reliable; others swear by it. So we're back to bjalf's option of flipping coins then
I have three or four traffic apps on my iPhone and find them all hard to read quickly and often wrong. I've taken to using Google Maps (!) as it shows the motorways as green/orange/red and a casual glance at the display reveals all you need to know without any screen taps. It's relatively reliable, but the M25 sometimes gets stuffed before Google knows about it. But that's the M25 for you. Shame it doesn't do A roads...
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iOS rokcs (but my typing - well....)
@PedroStephano

[PaulB2005]

I find HD Traffic to be very good.

If you are looking for a perfect system you'll never find one. There will always be a delay between a hold up starting and it being reported. On one occassion i was unfortunate enough to be 20 or so cars behind an accident which closed the carridgeway. It only took 2 minutes for the delay to appear on the TomTom.

I have done many 300+ mile journeys across the UK and HD Traffic has diverted me from my normal route and taken me on A roads instead of motorways where it was the best option. It's also taken through London instead of round the M25 when it was blocked both ways. Each time the route was effective and we made good time usually only adding 15-20 minutes to the total journey time of five and a half hours.

Other have argued in the past that i can't possibly have known if the HD Traffic service was right as the normal road could have been clear, but the way i see it is it added an insignificant amount of time to my journey and we didn't stop moving except for junctions and traffic signals.

HD Traffic has only really let me down once when it didn't have a planned A road closure on it and on another occassion I ignored it once my own cost!

As i said earlier there is no 100% effective solution. I'm looking at having to travel daily across the Tyne every morning and evening during rush hour. There are 3 different routes i can take. Each has it's own merits, but i'll be using HD Traffic to determine on a day to day basis which one to take. People have tried to advise me which route is better but no 2 peoples advice matches. I've heard radio reports of road closures and long delays as i'm driving the section of road they are talking about at 70 mph in medium traffic. I've been advised to avoid going on another road when i've driven it several times with no issues.

Everyone has different stories of success or failure but look at any review of anything (washing machines, cameras, cars etc) and there are plenty of critics of perfectly good products. Quite often the experience is subjective.

HD Traffic is just a tool. It's not a guarentee to trouble free motoring. Use it, don't use it. It's up to you but if you do get caught out could you have done any better without it?

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