TomTom LIVE - Success or Failure?

perussell · Frequent Visitor Joined: May 12, 2006 Posts: 292

Have covered about 1500 miles over the last 10 days from Wiltshire right through to Inverness and back again and based upon the frequent rerouting offered and the live traffic bulletin reports on the radio I have to say I was extremely impressed - it saved me a lot of time!

There is no more smug a feeling than being able to drive at 60 mph on a clear road which runs parallel to the road which is congested Very Happy

red-max · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 31, 2009 Posts: 6

I've only had my TomTom GO 540 LIVE for a couple of weeks now, and I am interested to hear feedback from other owners on the LIVE services, HD Traffic in particular.

This morning it seemed to work quite well when there was a queue of traffic at the bottom of the A34, unfortunately too late for me to divert, but my colleague behind was able to re-route and save 20 mins delay after I called to warn him.

As far as the other LIVE services, I find the Fuel pricing (and nearest fuel locations) to be quite useful. The Google search is impressive, though I haven't used it in anger yet. The Weather reports and Buddies features are somewhat less useful for me.
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New Road Angel, Garmin Nuvi 770T, TomTom GO 540 LIVE

HappyTrucker · Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 11:05 pm Post subject:

I was going to start a new topic on this, but stumbled across this one. My trial's now expired (even the 14 day free grace they give you by promising to subscribe) and I have to say that recently the HD Traffic has been, well, pants.

In the last week of my trial it missed:

M6 closed at J8 (M5). All matrix signs clearly stating a closure but due to my destination and legal driving times diverting earlier (across through towards Derby to M1 say) wasn't an option. The matrix signs were telling me it was closed from about Knutsford (M6 J19) so they can't say it 'was a sudden thing'. Was allowing me to plan a route through it even when I was at the junction and it was clearly coned off.

A650 closed between M62 J27 and J26. Allowed me to route a journey along a matrix and radio notified closed road.

A421 closed at Milton Keynes (near Amazon)

Phantom slow traffic queues (the ever present ones on the A1 J25 to Hatfield for starters)

I WAS considering subscribing but I'm now wondering if I'd be better off spending £50 on the active dock with TMC. Any opinions on the relative merits/demerits of this approach?

andy1954 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 30, 2009 Posts: 12

Having had HD now for two months i would never go back to TMC.
Well worth the money in my book.

matthewj · Frequent Visitor Joined: Apr 03, 2006 Posts: 751

The only problem HD Traffic has is road closures. Slow traffic, "perfect". But road closures need to be sorted.

aerotec · Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:32 pm Post subject:

I emailed them about a closure on the M1 which was not notified through HD Traffic and they just said they would pass the report to Level 2 Support. Whatever that means!

I think the issue is that if the traffic is flowing off the motorway at the closure then the system doesn't realise there is a closure. Would TMC data show the closure? They need to tie in Highway Agency data to the HD traffic and possible set the algorithm so that if it stops sensing the voda data on a road section that is not matching the IQ traffic then it should alert someone to manually intervene by calling Sally Traffic and ask her what is going on!

I hope it will get better so have renewed for 12 months.

BTW I have a 12 month LIVE card for sale in the "For Sale" forum for £75 posted or £73 if the code is emailed if that is of interest to anyone.

HappyTrucker · Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:59 pm Post subject:

aerotec · Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 2:50 pm Post subject:

If I got diverted and my HD service did not warn me about it I would soon get bored of calling up to notify Tomtom. If they offered an incentive such as "first 10 to notify us gets a months service extension" then maybe. I have had my unit 3 months and have already got fed up loading up Map Corrections unless it is a road I will be back on and want my own map to reflect the change. Though I hear this is a waste of time as I have subscribed to the 24 month map update and each time you get a new map you lose all your map corrections?

MrT · Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 4:33 pm Post subject:

The HD traffic is not just the vodaphone data, that is an add on to the data that TT already gets from other sources. The HD traffic should be the GPRS TT Traffic plus the vodaphone, but sometimes the other suppliers traffic info seems to get messed up by TomTom, it is there but it needs an improvement in reliability.

The HD traffic also covers roads that the TMC and GPRS traffic does not.

On long trips I still use Traffic-TV on my mobile as a backup source of traffic data so I can verify detours on major roads. If I am still unsure I can use Traffic TV to look at the CCTV cameras on motorways to verify the situation.
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