TomTom Traffic or TomTom RDS/TMC Receiver

[stuart_rayner]

Im just shooting from the lip a bit here.

Having had the same problems with TMC as many others, I got thinking as to why TrafficMaster, with its comprehensive infrastructure (on motorways, anyway) need to use third party radio stations, who in turn use a telecomms company such as NTL or Crown Castle to actually transmit their signals.

I would have thought a more suitable solution would be to mount low power transmitters along with their cameras and IR sensors. Would only need enough range to overlap with one or two neighbouring units, so a few watts at most. Broadcast either data local to that sensor, or the whole shooting match.

Would cut out a few middle men too.

Guess this would require huge changes so will never come to pass, but I reckon it should have been done this way from the start.

Sorry, opinionated rant over

[Darren]

Well to a fashion that's how TrafficMaster's network (not their TMC Service) has always operated. It used road side transmitters operating on the pager frequencies to send packet data to TrafficMaster units in cars.

The beauty of that method is it only sent local data and therefore you only received data applicable to where you were currently. The limitations are that the system was restricted to very small data quantities so could only give very basic alerts, certainly no detailed information on traffic or jams ahead and you couldn't pre-plan as you can with a TMC receiver.

Whilst low power units work, they need to be in an unoccupied segment of the radio band to avoid interference and their is precious little of that left. Plus the cost of installing and maintaining the infrastructure would be prohibitive.
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Darren Griffin

[swing]

The other problem of course is that Trafficmaster would need to be granted a radio license, which would be very expensive and difficult to recoup the costs (most radio licenses are funded from the advertising revenue of the radio station....)

[stuart_rayner]

All good points (didnt know about the TrafficMaster network though).

These things usually boil down to cost, and in the case of telecomms, bandwidth. After all, thats why analogue TV is getting shut down starting in 2 years - to make room for new services.

To be honest, although Im only in my trial, TTT has been quite good. I just like to try all the alternatives where possible. Not sure if I do enough miles to justify buying a year at once, but I read somewhere you can extend your trial one month at a time. Now all I need is Vodafone to give me a deal on GPRS data, rather than the '1,000,000 free texts per month' deals that seem to be everywhere

[gpssparky]

You could try traffictv on a months free trial. More accurate but not integrated with tomtom.


http://www.traffictv.co.uk/


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FREE trial of TrafficTV on your mobile
FREE Trafficmaster traffic data
FREE access to over 600 live roadside cameras

Just text traffic gmt to shortcode 84300 for a month’s trial FREE.
(Trial only available to readers of this newsletter)

TrafficTV is simply a must for any driver. Voted best data application on a personal mobile device in 2005 by the Mobile Data Association, TrafficTV is downloaded over the air to any colour mobile phone. Once installed, it displays all of Trafficmaster’s live UK traffic information, showing congestion in speed or delay in minutes overlaid onto a full colour map on your handset.

TrafficTV also sources CCTV images from seven providers including the Highways Agency to give customers access to over 600 live roadside cameras. After the trial you then pay via a simple subscription or through your mobile phone bill. Or text “STOP” to 84300 to cancel at anytime.

Just text traffic gmt to shortcode 84300 for a month’s trial FREE.
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Everywhere and nowhere

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