x40/HD Traffic/TMC in use

ricchop · Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject:

At around 14:00 hours Friday 14th November 2008 I was driving south along the A421 from KEMPSTON, BEDFORDSHIRE to MARSTON MORTAINE, BEDFORDSHIRE a distance of about three miles. The A421 is always busy with the north bound A421 being the busier route from the M1 Junction 13 to BEDFORD. As I drove south bound I could see the north bound side was stationary with waiting traffic stretching all the way from the road works at KEMPSTON back to MARSTON MORTAINE. Although that part of the A421 is slow going it is not very often the A421 stops moving.
When I got to MARSTON MORTAINE I looked at the Browse Traffic Map on my TomTom 540 and I was pleased to see the A421 north bound queuing traffic correctly shown all the way from MARSTON MORTAINE to KEMPSTON with the south bound A421 showing clear. I could also see a small amount of waiting traffic on the south bound A421 at M1 junction 13. Out of interest I Navigated back to KEMPSTON. I was now shocked to see my 540 navigate me back on to the north bound A421 in to the waiting three mile traffic queue with a delay of just three minutes. There ae plenty of quicker traffic free routes from MARSTON MORTAINE to KEMPSTON and three miles of stationary traffic would cause more than a three minute delay. I then drove on a small B road for about a mile through MARSTON MORTAINE towards KEMPSTON from where I could see the waiting traffic on the A421 and my TT 540 was now showing a two minute delay! so much for HD Traffic. Two hours would have been more like it...
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Navman Pin to TomTom Go to Go 300 to Go 720 to Go 730 to Go 540 Application 8.024 (9718/081105)OS:232962 GPS v1.20, Boot 5.5106 United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland Map.

magicdave · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 15, 2005 Posts: 10

At least your HD Traffic is actually working. All I have is the yellow warning triangle for 3 days now Crying or Very sad

SydEx · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 21, 2006 Posts: 20

Up until today, I have been very impressed with Live Traffic. However....

At Didcot, for the whole of the day, the A4130 has been closed at a particular point for bridge repairs. This was notified weeks ago, and diversion signs were put up overnight.

I drove past the location twice today. On Live Traffic - nothing! TomTom tried to navigate me through the closure in both directions.

Very disappointing!

Graeme2812 · Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 9:53 pm Post subject:

I'm having a similar experience. Locations with roadworks and road closures etc. that are present on my 730 are not on my 540.

Stuck in traffic due to roadworks today for about 30min. The roadworks have been there for a few weeks now and are fairly extensive. Not a single notice on HDT, in fact for some strange reason it was reporting congestion 2/3 miles up the road where in fact the road was clear ad not where the problem was. Even after the 30min of sitting in the traffic with the 540, I would have imagined I'd have seen at least some warning/notice of this incident, their [Tomtom] tracking my SIM in the 540 for this reason after all are they not? (to collate my speed/distance/time etc.)

730 was showing the roadworks AND the congestion.

Can't win them all I guess. Rolling Eyes

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Graeme Bennett
Go 540 LIVE
App. 9.510.1234792.1 (2039,04/04/2013)
United Kingdom & ROI v945.6174

hailstorm · Regular Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 78

jase_31 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 23

But HDT is suppose to combine the existing tmc traffic data, with other sources vodafone etc. Therefore closures of this nature should be notified by the Highways Agency (and even shown on basic tmc).

HDT should be everyting Standard traffic is, and more.[/quote]

lola · Lifetime Member Joined: Aug 31, 2006 Posts: 146

Forgive me if this has already been asked elsewhere.

I used to have GPRS Traffic (same as TMC but via GPRS). I never found it accurate so stopped the subscription.

Question: If Tomtom get upto date Live infor for the x40 series devices then why wouldn't they transmit the more accurate info via TMC or GPRS.

It does seem to me from the above posts that HDT is still as unaccurate as TMC. Is this because not enough people have subscribed to yet another Tomtom upgrade?

Guinness2702 · Regular Visitor Joined: Oct 23, 2008 Posts: 156

SydEx · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 21, 2006 Posts: 20

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

Can someone grab a frame from the launch video that shows the map where HD traffic is implemented, and where not? Me, I think that TomTom should release it anyway as HD is working well for some people, and not well for others. Perhaps this is because they are in/out of the proper areas. By just pretending it is working everywhere, they are getting themselves a bad reputation.

I certainly expect that the old stuff should still be included, but maybe they don't as it was unreliable. But a road closure should surely be included.

This had better be sorted soon or they'll have a lot of people not paying subscriptions.

magicdave · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 15, 2005 Posts: 10

Day 4 and still no Traffic. I'm beginning to get highly frustrated by the little yellow warning triangle.

Is Reading just a black hole as far as HD Traffic is concerned or have I missed something obvious. Didn't think I needed to activate anything - it should just work automatically at switch on. I've already established the Sim and network connection is ok ... so why doesn't it work ??? Grrrrrrrrrrr

Graeme2812 · Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 10:20 pm Post subject:

stealthdevil · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 05, 2007 Posts: 40

Touch wood, mine is still performing pretty well. I have yet to come across a traffic incident not reported.

The morning rush hour is accounted for in the IQRoutes, I still manage to arrive within the time specified. If the rush hour is slightly more in places where traffic is typical, the HD traffic picks it up. For example, this morning the queue on my typical route was longer, and HD traffic picked it up with an extra 1 min delay.

As for queue lengths, I'm impressed with how accurate the data is. As the queue gets longer, the HD traffic updates with the new length which is pretty much spot on..

Apart from 1 outage of HD traffic (i noticed an improvement after the outage so maybe it was maintenance), I can't fault it.

Lane closures are something which isn't being reported, but I remember with TMC a lane closure showed up 3 days after it had cleared. I'm guessing tomtom does not have much faith in the other sources so as they work to make the information more accurate, they are omitting it. Logically, so long as the lane closures do not cause significant delay, then it's still free flowing traffic, and if traffic builds up due to a lane closure, then no doubt the hd traffic will report the congestion..

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

Well, I can't work out how to get an image uploaded, but the map is really very interesting. Mainly because there is no key. There are yellow parts and there are green parts. Green covers the Glasgow to Edinburgh and Aberdeen area (not West of Glasgow). Green then covers Cumbria. Probably Manchester and Birmingham. Cardiff area of South Wales. Some place north of London, perhaps Milton Keynes. Bath to Poole area. North Devon, south Cornwall. There's a hint of green in central London, and on the East coast by London.

Everywhere else is yellow.

Now, this either means that London and the main motorways have no coverage, or that the areas listed above have no coverage. And if the latter is true, then the whole of Wales and North of Scotland has coverage, but not some major cities.

The text says "currently covers 80% of all major roads in the UK", "Coverage for HD feed being improved every week to cover 100% of the Vodafone network".
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