TMC in the EU (vs Anarchy in the UK?)

MLF · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 28, 2006 Posts: 7

...yes, I know we're all one EU now (sic)....

Does anyone have recent experience of using TMC on the continent, especially France?

We're planning the annual run from Calais to Beziers on the Friday before Samedi Noir, so I'm hoping some traffic info would save (or prevent the loss of) a few hours.

We're considering buying a TomTom Go 730T. If anyone has experience of one of them on the continent that would be particularly welcome information.

Regards,
Martin.

GPS_fan · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:43 pm Post subject:

From what I've read, TMC would appear to work better on the continent than in the UK - although TomTom's recent software update to v8 seems to have cured a lot of the previous problems.

Better performance on the continent is due, at least in part, to the higher power output of the FM/RDS signal, which TMC relies on as its data source.

The 730T which you mentioned would be running v8 software straight out of the box and I understand that this should provide perfectly adequate coverage for your intended trip.
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Andy
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MLF · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 28, 2006 Posts: 7

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the reply. What you say rings true with what I'm reading around the forums, certainly the v8 update seems to have cured many ills- even ones which (as an IT pro) I wouldn't have though for a minute could be software based!

I think we'll go for the TTGO730T, particularly as my old PDA (core of the present solution) gave me a scare the other day when it wouldn't power up! Fortunately it was just a mis-seated battery, but it reminds one how much we rely on them nowadays.

Cheers!

Regards,
Martin.

st1967 · Lifetime Member Joined: Nov 28, 2003 Posts: 189

I know its a bit late but just back from 3 weeks in France / Spain where we drove from the top of France right down to the Spanish Border.

I have built in Honda SatNav with TMC and it did work all the way through France. It stopped over the Spanish border but was very good in France.

While I mostly used the toll roads which are by nature quieter than our motorways it did pick up the only holdup we had driving down.

One other nice feature on the French TMC was driving conditions, it would list Rain, Wind (Gales) etc. Not sure how accurate they were though as the rain section I drove through didn't have any. Also even though it was French TMC it still appeared in English on my Traffic Info. Although I guess that is down to the signal being sent just being interpreted by my UK TMC.
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Samsung S22 Android, Google Maps & Camera Alert

Darren · Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject:

I've also recently returned from France having driven down to the Med and back.

Whilst reception is very much better, my findings (using a TomTom 720) where that the data was hopelessly inaccurate. I lost count of the number of warnings of non-existent traffic jams we received. Indeed the only two jams we did encounter, one of which resulted in a 2hr crawl past Peznas went unreported by TMC.
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Darren Griffin

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