Tomtom Traffic - real costs?????

[tonygold]

hi
i have a tomtom ONE and am interested in obtaining the traffic updates. can anyone explain how this actually works in relation to updating whilst on the move. how often does your mobile phone have to connect and for how long?? are the calls deductable from your allowed minutes on 'orange' or charged seperatly, and how much are any subscriptions on top of the calls likely to cost.
many thanks. hope i'm in the right thread to obtain answers. thanks.
tony.

[gadget_sa]

Firstly, I'm not on Orange so not sure how they work.

Traffic updates are obtained by Bluetooth pairing your phone and TomTom.
It is retreived by accessing the airwaves by GPRS NOT by calls.

Vodafone charge me £2.35 per MB.

Average update is about 30kb (10p roughly)

You set he update frequency depending on your needs and movements.

EG. Whilst travelling to my holiday destination, I had it every 15 minutes which was enough for me.

At this moment TT are offering Traffic at a reduced rate compared to last year.
You have to make up your mind if it's worth the initial cost, and running costs depending on your circumstances.

Me? Don't travel far to work so not much onward running costs. Initial cost from TT at the moment I would say was "reasonable"

Hope it helps :D
_________________
Steve

iPhone 6 with Western Europe & CamerAlert

[TonyHoyle]

I'm on Orange and it's never come close to using my data allowance - the amount that traffic uses is very small, even with no limits to the number of updates.

IIRC if you're over that from browsing etc. it's £1/mb and a months traffic will use far less than 1mb.

[tonygold]

many thanks for replies.
i am given 3mb per month from orange so presumably that will cover my updates. i am a sales rep so can cover up to 500 miles a week in and around london so could use this service. how much does tomtom charge per month pls?? and is it easy to set up??

[gadget_sa]

TT charge an annual fee for Traffic.
Please check the website for complete information.
_________________
Steve

iPhone 6 with Western Europe & CamerAlert

[tonygold]

will check it out. thanks for info. is it a worthwile thing to have in your opinion for use in and around london??

[Tumbleweed]

[gadget_sa]

[tonygold]

thanks for pointers.
much obliged.
tony.

[Daggers]

In my experience, Traffic generally only reports major incidents on motorways & main A roads, and often it can be inaccurate.

As an example, I drove to Gatwick last month, and traffic was reporting a of almost 2 hours on the southern section of the M25. I suspect that something this major should be reported on the radio traffic reports and/or motorway matrix signs, so as I had heard nothing, I took a chance and stayed on the M25. As I suspected, there was no delay whatsoever.

When I returned from holiday two weeks later, Traffic was still reporting the same delay on the M25!!

My advice if you do choose to buy the service is to use it in conjunction with other sources of traffic information, and to expect it to work only on the most major roads.

Strangely, my although Traffic subscription has expired, I'm still receiving the service! I don't think I would have paid to renew it.

Now if they can upgrade the service so that individual TTs send information to the central Traffic database via GPRS, and they can use that data to calculate traffic delays, then that WOULD be a service worth paying for.

[jblackmore]

[TonyHoyle]

I trust it for motorways only, and even then only if I don't know the route.

OTOH on the M5 2 weeks ago it completely failed to notice that the road was closed and all the exit roads were carparks. Even on motorways it seems their updates are patchy (I wasn't in any hurry so just sat in the queue switched my engine off and read a book...)

I'm waiting to see if TMC is better. I suspect not - it's the same data, theoretically. I'll let others find that out first.. my traffic doesn't run out for at least another 6 months.

[Daggers]

jblackmore wrote

[Antoeknee]

Well after the other weekend I'm giving Traffic a big thumbs up .

Was taking my son to Heathrow. Left Aylesbury (after overnight stay) and when on the M4 an update from Traffic showed a delay on the Heathrow approch from the M4.

As it happened this delay got worse (an accident apparently) and traffic tailed back onto the M4. It took us 20 minutes to get down the slip road and to the roundabout (no alternative for this bit so we had to grin and bear it).

TT took us a different way to the approach road and the these roads were empty bar some taxis and airport buses (obviously they know about the alternative). As we passed over the airport approach road we could see traffiic at a stand still.

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time in the end so spent some time having a coffee. Spoke to a couple who had taken over 30 minutes getting from the motorway roundabout to terminal 3.

My free trial (again) has just stopped working and I've decided to subscribe particularly in light of reduced cost.

Up-dates need to be a bit more frequent (the actual data that is). Traffic data is at the mercy of how soon an incident is reported and then added to the database. Then its how often you've set TT to do update as well.

Just imagine an incident gets reported 10 minutes after it occurs and you've set updates to take place every 10 minutes. Then it could be as long as 20 minutes before you see any change in the road status. On a motorway you'll have travelled a long way in that time.

Personally I agree that you need to use it in conjunction with other sources (radio) for major incidents.

I know in the area where I live Traffic has been pretty acurate for the roads works that are going on. It does however alway over state the frequent hold ups at rush hour for one of the motorway junctions.

[tonygold]

thanks antoeknee,
you mention the reduced cost. i saw on tomtom web site a cost of 39.95 euro. is that the reduced cost and how long is that money for?? having trouble activating traffic as although my nokia 6280 is recognised by the tomtom, it does not show up in the list of compatible phoneslater in the set up????
any help on this matter appreciated. have emailed tomtom, but their replies can take ages!!!
thanks again

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!