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paulwilko Regular Visitor
Joined: May 08, 2004 Posts: 75
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 10:01 am Post subject: Will anybody renew their subscription ? |
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I am dissapointed with Traffic at the moment, so as we speak, i will not be renewingunless drastic changes occur.
Anybody else feel this way ?
Paul |
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thedon Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jan 08, 2004 Posts: 58 Location: Wiltshire
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 10:58 am Post subject: |
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Its a shame, as I love the idea, but £30 (?) for a years subscription seems steep for a service that I can't yet get to work reliably - and probably could get the same benefit from switching on the traffic announcement on the radio.
In all honesty it's just a toy - and I'd only really benefit from it on one journey a month (on average) - although if it would save me from being stuck in a jam just once, I'd probably be happy to pay £30.
Ultimately I like it, and want it - but am disappointed with it since paying for it.
If it doesn't improve (or perhaps should read: If I can't get it to work consistently) or get substantially cheaper, then I definately won't renew. |
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geraint Lifetime Member
Joined: Jun 20, 2004 Posts: 194 Location: Dorset, UK.
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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£30 per year is about 58p per week, or about 8p per day. Doesn't sound that expensive to me... _________________ Geraint
TomTom for iPhone v1.9
App version: 8.300 (777309)
Map: Western Europe v875.3668 |
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SimonCatlin Frequent Visitor
Joined: Jan 11, 2004 Posts: 565 Location: London
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 10:43 pm Post subject: |
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As I have said before, think of the links that is required to make this work...
Collection of the raw data over 1000's of miles of roads (believed to be sensors on trucks and mobile phone movements). This data is correlated and passed from Itis to TomTom, who then make it avilable via their own servers, with a little bit of formating thrown in for free. They write the software that by pressing a touch screen, tells the pocket pc bluetooth drivers to go look for a mobile telephone, dial up either 3G or GPRS connection, connect to the service providers network, hand shake, go off and using DNS find the correct location of TomTom's data, download that data after being authorised by the servers, sift the data and then apply it onto the maps and routings we have choosen. All this at 70 mph (honest officer). So 8p a day plus less than 1p for the data retrival sounds quite clever to me.
However, the Itis data needs to be more accurate and TomTom servers need to be a damn sight quicker and more reliable. But, I will still be renewing in September. _________________ iPhone5, TomTom, Google maps, Navfree, Viewranger and Apple Maps (ekk) |
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thedon Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jan 08, 2004 Posts: 58 Location: Wiltshire
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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I agree that 8p a day / 58p a week isn't expensive - if the product worked.
Sadly it doesn't work well, and there seems to be plenty of other people posting in this forum who have significant problems with it. |
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skippyzoid Occasional Visitor
Joined: May 24, 2005 Posts: 7
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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Why charge for it?, Route66 dont.
BUT, if the route66 guys wrote a plugin for tomtom and charged a one off fee for access to their servers I'd buy it in preference to TT Traffic subs.
I used route66 on the laptop for years before I bought tomtom, and only then the advent of being given an IPAQ for work when they moved from laptops to hand helds.
I found the route66 traffic info really not bad, it could do with a few improvements in its interface but hey, its a free service who has a right to complain about something they havnt paid for.
Perhaps someone could come up with a little plugin to solve this, perhaps not ethical though. |
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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skippyzoid wrote: | Why charge for it?, Route66 dont. | Of course they do, instead of charging subscribers they just roll up the licence fees for the data and add it to the software's purchase price. iTIS charge a substantial licence fee to provide access to the service and you will pay for it one way or another. At least this way only those that use it pay for it. _________________ Darren Griffin |
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andy-c1 Lifetime Member
Joined: Feb 05, 2005 Posts: 1039 Location: East Sussex
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Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 8:39 am Post subject: |
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i'm not to sure as it doesn't really help the country folks ,sure it works well in the citys but i've come across many incidents in teh country & they havn't showed up or there's a huge avoid area but when you get there it's as clear as a whistle _________________ TomTom 5001 |
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 9:20 am Post subject: |
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andy-c1 wrote: | i'm not to sure as it doesn't really help the country folks ,sure it works well in the citys but i've come across many incidents in teh country & they havn't showed up or there's a huge avoid area but when you get there it's as clear as a whistle |
But that's an issue that affects all TMC Services. iTIS who run the UK operation use a variety of methods to collect the data ranging from units installed in HGV fleets, data sourced from traffic agencies etc. As a result the outerlying areas will always be poorly covered.
Hopefully as the service matures this will improve, it would be great if they could use a similar system to TrafficMaster with roadside data collection posts. _________________ Darren Griffin |
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SteveW Frequent Visitor
Joined: 21/05/2003 22:54:59 Posts: 516 Location: Leicestershire UK
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 1:07 am Post subject: |
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For once it worked well for me yesterday, every time I pressed update it went off and found the server and downloaded the traffic information (which by the way was not showing the traffic jam I was sitting in on the M1 - "no incidents on route"), so I suppose it is an improvement, but overall I have found it too unreliable, and in fact dangerous when messing to get the thing to work properly. I tend to rely on the radio traffic news on my travels. I doubt I will be renewing. |
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andyjenkins Regular Visitor
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 74
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Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 12:31 am Post subject: |
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Darren wrote: | it would be great if they could use a similar system to TrafficMaster with roadside data collection posts. |
Eh, that gave me an idea. And oh boy, am I impressed with myself
Trafficmaster in my eyes are considered to be the best in the UK for traffic information .. as you say .. with the roadside cameras, they're bound to be. So why havent they developed some software for PPC users ?
Well they have !!!!
I've managed to get their feed, directly onto my PDA - updated via GPRS via bluetooth on my mobile (or Wifi - whichever I'm near too).
I'm going to produce a howto if anyone is interested, but here's the shots after a couple of hours fiddling tonight.
Here's a couple of screen shots that I've managed to grab from my iPAQ HX4700 .. sorry about the quality.
Full UK view
Zoomed in a bit
Zoomed in abit more
You can go in another level or two as well, but I've not captured screenshots of that much yet.
Cost? Well, not that much. All of this is 100% legit, and the service from TrafficMaster costs £39.99 per year - although I'm subscribed to a £14.99 3 month trial, so I can see what its like in a real world situation.
Obviously, this is a seperate application to the likes of TomTomNavigator - but I'm going to see if I can yank the data .. possibly create it into a POI, so that TTN may pick up a traffic jam as a point of interest. Not ideal, but may be worth investigating.
If anyone is interested I'll look at writting a how-to for the site. _________________ --
Got Broadband? |
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 7:06 am Post subject: |
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Uh, isn't this already available? Traffic-I is a subscription based service for Sony UIQ, Nokia Symbian OS, PocketPC Phone Edition and MS Smartphone that delivers TrafficMaster data to your handset for £39.99 pa.
http://www.traffic-i.com/
It's no cheaper, is not dynamic and whilst useful to check traffic conditions before you depart it is of little use once moving. _________________ Darren Griffin |
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andyjenkins Regular Visitor
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 74
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Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 9:28 am Post subject: |
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Isnt Traffic-I only available on Palm? _________________ --
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andyjenkins Regular Visitor
Joined: Apr 02, 2005 Posts: 74
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Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 9:34 am Post subject: |
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Oh, and what's not dynamic? Traffic-I? Or the TrafficMaster on my PDA? Both are auto updating if you want them to be. _________________ --
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 9:43 am Post subject: |
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Traffic-I is available on a variety of platforms inc Symbian, PocketPC and Smartphone.
I use the term 'dynamic' to mean it cannot alter your route or alert you to problems on your programmed route automatically because it has no integration with the navigation. _________________ Darren Griffin |
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