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TomTom Integrates Highways Agency Data Into HD Traffic
Article by: Darren Griffin
Date: 14 Jul 2011
TomTom have now integrated Highways Agency data into their HD Traffic service.
The data, collected by the Highways Agency using their network of road surface and roadside monitoring equipment, and combined with reports from the Agency's Traffic Control Centre, will add a further level of detail and incident information to the reports provided by HD Traffic.
More usefully, the data will allow HD Traffic to forewarn of pre-planned incidents that may affect your journey such as temporary road closures.
TomTom's live traffic map can be viewed here and the Highways Agency Press Release can be read in full here.
| Comments
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 Posted by mikealder on Thu Jul 14, 2011 9:51 am |
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Considering yet again over recent days the HD Traffic service has been down it doesn't matter what they add to the data if they are incapable of delivering the data to the device, they need to sort out the reliability issues in my opinion - Mike
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| Posted by st1967 on Thu Jul 14, 2011 1:45 pm |
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Hopefully this means HD traffic will be aware of road closures. Been caught a couple of times using Traffic re-routes only to come across a closed local road?
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| Posted by MaFt on Thu Jul 14, 2011 2:37 pm |
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| st1967 Wrote: | | Hopefully this means HD traffic will be aware of road closures. Been caught a couple of times using Traffic re-routes only to come across a closed local road? |
I don't think local roads would be covered by The Highways Agency? That's more local council remit I think.
MaFt
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| Posted by DennisN on Thu Jul 14, 2011 8:23 pm |
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| mikealder Wrote: | | Considering yet again over recent days the HD Traffic service has been down it doesn't matter what they add to the data if they are incapable of delivering the data to the device, they need to sort out the reliability issues in my opinion - Mike |
+1 
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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| Posted by W90BHP on Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:01 am |
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| MaFt Wrote: | | I don't think local roads would be covered by The Highways Agency? That's more local council remit I think. |
Correct. The Highways Agency only operate the Strategic Road Network (motorways and some trunk roads). The rest are in the hands of Local Authority Highways Departments. Only a few of these will have traffic monitoring, nevermind data to share. This is where Trafficmaster came in...
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| Posted by xtraseller on Fri Jul 15, 2011 6:01 pm |
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Please to see TomTom HD Traffic improve their offering, but it remains crazy that local government isn't forced (or even, it seems, wants) to alert the main traffic information providers (TomTom, TrafficMaster, etc.) that their roads are closed - yet the remain "committed" to reducing road usage, wasted journeys and reducing the carbon footprint of their area
Oh well, who are we to compare the cost of all those wasted routes and diversions, compared to a quick data update one a day from a local authority
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| Posted by W90BHP on Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:31 pm |
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| xtraseller Wrote: | | ...it remains crazy that local government isn't forced (or even, it seems, wants) to alert the main traffic information providers (TomTom, TrafficMaster, etc.) that their roads are closed... |
Forced at what expense? They generally don't have the infrastructure to source the data, nevermind share it. The technology to collect the data isn't cheap to install and therefore not ideal to come from the public purse.
LG G4: Android 6 : Viewranger : CoPilot : Waze
TomTom Go 730T : Traffic subscription long expired
Nokia E61 : Nokia GPS : TomTom Navigator 6 : Retired from duty
iPAQ 3970 : Navman Sleeve : CoPilot 4 : Somewhere in the loft |
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| Posted by davemcwish on Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:23 am |
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Just clicked on the link, got message "Sorry, traffic information is currently not available" 
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| Posted by M8TJT on Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:12 am |
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| davemcwish Wrote: | | Just clicked on the link, got message "Sorry, traffic information is currently not available" |
Well, I just clicked on it and it worked.
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| Posted by DennisN on Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:31 pm |
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| W90BHP Wrote: | | xtraseller Wrote: | | ...it remains crazy that local government isn't forced (or even, it seems, wants) to alert the main traffic information providers (TomTom, TrafficMaster, etc.) that their roads are closed... |
Forced at what expense? They generally don't have the infrastructure to source the data, nevermind share it. The technology to collect the data isn't cheap to install and therefore not ideal to come from the public purse. |
Back in the days before I became Tired and Old, I used to run a Highways divisional office. Every week on one day, County Hall would phone through wanting anything for the Traffic Report. We'd say "What was on last week?", they'd tell us and we'd say "No change" or "such and such has ended". It was extremely inconvenient when they rang, so they got grudging response, with very little care as to its accuracy. At more important times (for the public) when we had overnight floods, or high winds, or snow, they'd ring and ask how many trees were down, or how many roads flooded, or how many roads blocked by snow. They rang at whatever time we were up to our ears in phone calls from the public and radio calls from our work crews. So they got whatever came to our minds as a first guess figure. It was a fact that we didn't appreciate (and nobody had ever attempted to explain to us) that the information to be transmitted over the radio was important to the travelling public - to us, the County Hall phone calls were just another annoying interruption when we had far better stuff to deal with. We held the same attitude towards potholes - we wanted to go out and mend them, but County Hall wanted a report of how many we had and eventually issued handheld thingies for precisely that purpose. So we concluded that HQ wanted reports, not action and we treated them with appropriate disdain.
That was back in the 70s. There have been even more reductions in resources since then (even I retired 15 years ago!), so I don't expect any of those depots are any better equipped to deal with traffic reports.
Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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on account of it admitting they have (had) reliability problems 
