Traffic Data – Service Guarantee

SpeedCam

Whilst driving home this evening I decided to rely on TT traffic which was a BIG mistake. I should have noticed that only 40 incidents in rush hour and rain could not be true.

So whilst in sitting on the M1 for 45 minutes I started to think about all these new traffic services that CoPilot, TomTom and others are trying to sell us.

Are these companies big enough, and capable of providing this type of service, up until recently each company has only been involved in developing & marketing software, some could argue they haven't do that very well.

But this type of service is completely different, it has be accurate, and available 24 hours a day 365 days a year from anywhere in Europe. Do these companies have resiliant fail over servers, multiple sites and staff on standby 24 by 7, somehow I don't think they have. These are relatively small developer comapnies not the AA, RAC & Traffic Masters and therefore not used to providing this type of service.

Should we part with our hard earned cash for this type of service until we know what infrastructure each organisation has backing up the service and the staff available to fix problems.

iancjc · Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 9:33 pm Post subject:

I heard about the M1 on the radio - did tomtom give you notice?
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TyTn II (WM6.1) / tomtom one v2
TTN6.03 tomtom 7.xx (one)

SpeedCam · Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 10:10 pm Post subject:

I didn't want to go into detail, I heard it on the radio and I chose to ignore it, TT traffic kept indicating it was clear, as I approached Jct 14 it was clear, but it then took 45 minutes to travel the 5miles to Jct 13.

I kept trying the traffic update, and nothing, but as I said it was only downloading 41 traffic incidents it's normally in the hundreds on a good day more if the weather is bad.

Was this problem caused by poor traffic data, or a server issue ? We'll never know, I suspect it is the switch to the new servers as I've just updated to V3.05T ?

Bottom line is I want a service I can rely on, the local radio was better than TomTom Traffic today and thats a free service...so why pay?

Darren · Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 10:38 pm Post subject:

TomTom, CoPilot etc merely deliver the TMC data feed, the data itself is gathered and collated by iTIS with the RAC announcing their own service recently.

So put simply all they have to do is maintain a relatively simple data server and ensure it is populated with the live data from the TMC Data Providers, not rocket science, the problems experienced concern the quality of TMC data overall and not the delivery mechanisms.
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Darren Griffin

SpeedCam · Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 11:43 am Post subject:

Fully understand how the service is supposed to work, however the solution is only as good as the weakest link. If TT or CoPilot only have one server, and no one on support it doesn't matter how good the data is the end user will never be able to access it if it fails.

I think this was the cause of yesterdays problem, the data was available, but the server infrastructure wasn't replicating or delivering it to the users correctly and on time.

MrT · Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:43 pm Post subject:

What I noticed had happened were that all the traffic incidents on display on Monday were long term incidents such as roadworks and not short term or live incidents.

MrT · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:49 pm Post subject:

and again....

At the moment (Monday 7:45pm) TT Traffic says that the only incidents on the London Map (actually most of SE England) are a few roadworks.

Whilst according to Traffic-I there are serious problem on the M4 (J4-J1) and the M1 around J7 (there is actually an accident there at the moment).

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