Anyone compared ITIS and Trafficmaster?

Petekk · Regular Visitor Joined: Mar 06, 2004 Posts: 137

Anyone been able to do an on the road comparison of the ITIS and TM data?

Does the ITIS system cover more roads? i.e is TM data just from the blue cameras, where ITIS may contain other data (i.e flooding/closed routes etc)

Does one outperform the other consistantly? or are each as good as each other?

stoker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 25, 2005 Posts: 9

I used ITIS via an in-car Toyota Sat Nav on frequent runs from Midlands to London airports. I found the traffic warnings to be as reliable as motorway signs. One of or the only 'real time' info was obtained from the Nav Tracker (vehicle location) system. Since then the ITIS web site refers to using mobile phone data as a 'real time' source. I haven't tried this yet.

On the few occasions I have used TM (some years ago in a Vauxhall as an 'old' TM unit, and this year in a VW as Smart Nav) I have found the info to be up to date.

nej · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2005 6:08 pm Post subject:

ITIS do use feeds from more than one vehicle location system.

Pimmsoclock · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 18

Surely Trafficmaster must have a great number of 'feeds' though?

ahenry · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 19, 2005 Posts: 51

I've got a Trafficmaster Freeway box and CoPilot 6 with the ITIS traffic news. They are complimentary.

Trafficmaster is useless on a route that they don't cover. There are some quite big holes in their network (eg the A11 near Cambridge has a stretch of dual carriageway for 15-20 miles with no cameras). In and around the M25 you get lots of warnings that are reasonably accurate.

Its good that you get a time for the delay. On my route into work there are some of their cameras that help judge the length of a delay. When it says that its 5 minutes, then its not so bad. On rare occaisions it gives a longer delay and then its worth taking a detour.

The Trafficmaster system only works when there is a delay. In the middle of the night, a road might be closed, but if there isn't a tailback to before another camera, then you won't get a warning.

The ITIS network combines data from several sources including schedule roadworks from the DoTR. I had it try to reroute me past a scheduled closure at 7am when the closure had been completed at 6am. It adds in data from transmitters on AA vans, National Express coaches and Eddie Stobart lorries. If one of those vehicles is delayed, then you get a warning, whereever it is. The warnings from the ITIS data are more descriptive than the Trafficmaster ones (eg "narrow lanes", "accident", "heavy traffic"), but you don't get a time for the delay.

Its nice to not have to rely on the annoying idiots who do the traffic news on local radio.

stoker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 25, 2005 Posts: 9

My dream is an FM RDS unit that intelligently combines the feeds from both ITIS and RAC TM so as to benefit from the strenghts of both, then feed it into a Sat Nav that intelligently reroutes, eg avoiding only the motorway junctions affected and not the entire motorway section of the journey.

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