Traffic on Tom Tom Mobile

pcb007 · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 122

I am currently using my trial period to try out the traffie on Tom Tom, and i was wondering what other peoples experiences are. I have had it in use for the past 4 days, and quite frankly its accuracy so far has been 0%. Road works that have been there for a few months are not there and road works that have been gone for weeks are still there. The other day it indicated a traffic jam and it took me on a route to avoid the traffic jam, this took me over a bridge which enabled me to have a good look at the so called traffic jam which was not present, my destination was 1/2 a mile down that road but it took me around the route which extended the route by just under 3 miles. Where does Tom Tom get its info from and how often is it updated? does anyone know?

MARViN2003 · Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 11:14 am Post subject:

I've been using the free trial for almost a month.

I don't think it's all that great.

I have also noticed roadworks marked in the wrong place, or listed roadworks/jams being non-existent when you get there.

I'm not going to pay for this service, It would probably be better to listen to the radio and manually put in any places to avoud on your route.

Bingo_Accent · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2005 Posts: 21

I've just signed up for the traffic service, because I'll be facing an M62 commute from Manchester to Leeds in the New Year.

This is despite also being unimpressed when I used the trial. We were on the M6 down from Scotland, and there was a major incident which was being flagged by the matrix signs four junctions before we got there.

TTM reported no problems, even when we hit the back of several miles of stationary traffic.

We managed to get off and join the A6, but again there was nothing reported despite the fact that this was a crawl for 3 hours.

It hardly inspired confidence.

Has anyone got any tips for actually making this thing work?

jeffrey · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 30, 2005 Posts: 1

does anyone know who offers the service for TomTom (trafficmaster?), and even for route 66. Does anyone have any knowledge of how the TMC for these two compares to that of a PND offering traffic like tomtom or Garmin Nuvi?

Bingo_Accent · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2005 Posts: 21

One suggestion I was given for TTM5's failure to pick up on the jams I encountered when using the trial period, was that it uses information based on the speed at which cars are travelling - and that therefore stationary traffic is translated as a clear road.

Don't know if there is any truth in this....

Bingo_Accent · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2005 Posts: 21

I’ve started my Manchester-Leeds commute, using Traffic on my SPV C500, and can’t figure it out.

I have set it to automatically re-route to avoid hold-ups, but it only seems to do this if I manually tell it to do so, on the move – not what I want to have to do on the M62.

So far, I’ve encountered traffic delays along my journey, but have been given the same route each day. I’d thought it strange, but just thought that the A roads must have been even worse.

I set off this morning and it picked up that there had been an accident (a jack-knifed lorry on the M60), but did not re-plan my route. The radio told me that things were staking up, so I selected the ‘show traffic info’ option, and it showed the accident. I then selected ‘re-plan’ but the selected route still included the snarl-up.

It was only when I selected the show traffic option again, and zoomed in to the specific incident, that I had an ‘avoid’ option. When I pressed this (just in time) I was taken off the M60, round the houses, and back on after the accident, thereby missing what sounded like a nasty delay. This is exactly what I expected Traffic to be doing for me all the time – what I didn’t expect was that I would have to be fiddling about with phone buttons in the dark to achieve it.

Am I doing something wrong?

Also, is there any way I can change a section of the route created by TTM5? I’m working on the east side of Leeds, and the ‘fastest’ route is taking me through the city centre. This may well be the quickest (i.e. most direct) if there is no traffic around, but everyone at work is suggesting better rush-hour alternatives. Notwithstanding the fact that Traffic should do this for me, but is there any way I can set the (standard) route I want? Even though I’ll know the journey in my sleep soon enough, I’d still want to use TTM5 for the Traffic re-routing and the safety camera warnings.

MJN · Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 2:42 pm Post subject:

I believe the data comes from iTIS (http://www.itisholdings.com/index_html.htm) - plenty of info about the technology/strategy behind the info at the site (although I haven't read it myself so don't know if it addresses the queries raised).

Mathew

Bingo_Accent · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2005 Posts: 21

Well, after 2 weeks of life on the M62, I can report that the Traffic function on my TTM5 is proving invaluable.

As previously mentioned, I didn’t get any rerouting for the first few days, and was worried that it wasn’t working.

I think it is important to remember with motorway journeys, that even with a hold-up, staying on your original route is often the quickest option. Although it may appear slow at the time, ‘lumpy’ motorway traffic is usually travelling at 20-40 mph. If you come off on to A roads, not only are you probably taking a longer route, but you are dealing with roundabouts and traffic lights, and aren’t going to be travelling much quicker when you are on the move.

When things have been really bad on the M62 though, Traffic has really come to my aid, and taken me off for a junction or two to get around the worst of the tail-backs.

Two things to mention though…

Firstly, get it switched on in plenty of time. There is a definite time-lag between assessing the traffic situation, establishing that any jams are there to stay, and re-routing you around them. Last night, I didn’t bother turning TTM5 on until after I’d filled up with fuel, by which time I was virtually at the M1. By the time the GPS had linked and the Traffic kicked in, I was in stationary traffic at a junction I’m normally avoiding. This added around ½ hour to my normal journey time.

Secondly, trust your instinct if you know an area. I live close to Old Trafford and on Wednesday night, although I was routed via the M602 (presumably to avoid match traffic on the M60) it was trying to send me through the centre of Manchester and back out. I took avoiding action of my own through Trafford Park and was home much quicker than I would have been.

All in all though, definitely worth the money.

technik · Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 6:05 pm Post subject:

I prefer to use TrafficTV on my Nokia 6680 is it shows actual speed of traffic, and also has live traffic cam pictures on the Orange 3G network.

I used to use traffic-i on my old 6600 which is similar.

I have tried TomTom traffic, but not that impressed.

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