Are there any TMC products?

robpow · Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:33 pm Post subject: Are there any TMC products?

(apart from RDS radios for cars, that is)

Would be very cool if you could have a TMC or Trafficmaster receiver for your PocketPC which caused your navigation software to re-route you automatically. I know there's an experimental traffic news feed on the bbc.co.uk web site which I guess in theory you could feed into your PocketPC from a GPRS mobile phone but are any software companies working on something like this? Mapopolis have an option, ClearRoute, in the US but I don't know of anything that works in the UK.

Cheers,
Matt
____________________
HP h1910
Haicom 203E

Dave · Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 10:41 pm Post subject:

Technically it's not TMC, but LiveWire will give you traffic news in a seperate application, you have to enter the departure/destination towns and any other roads you may be travelling and it will give you updates every 10-15 mins.

Revvin_Kevin · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 12:06 am Post subject:

Matt,

That would indeed be very useful these days. You can't seem to drive anywhere these days without roadworks holding you up somewhere. As I'm not a radio listener and don't have TA on my ICE, I could really use something which would alert to problems even if I had to manually re-route.

Revvin_Kevin · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 12:16 am Post subject:

Just been looking at the LiveWire website. It does indeed seem to offer what we're looking for (except auto re-routing). Does anyone use this service? Is it accurate? Is it worth the money?

Dave · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 7:26 am Post subject:

Yes, and guess what, a review is due very shortly! It is pretty accurate, I wasn't given erroneous information. Whether it's worth it is another matter. You have to remember if you don't have GPRS then that's going to cost you atleast another £4 a month for up to 1mb. You then have the cost of LiveWire on top. If you have GPRS already then you can right off the GPRS tariff, but still you have to pay the LiveWire tariff.

One thing I found also I couldn't do is that the Pocket PC locks open the phone for GPRS use, so I couldn't make a phone call whilst GPRS was in use obviously. Probably good to avoid receiving calls in the car, but a pain none the less.

onbashi · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 8:11 am Post subject:

Its a shame that the gps software on the pocket pc doesn't realise when your on major roads i.e motorways and you come to a stand still for more than a certain amount of time, because if it did it could re-route you off the road when possible or at least offer you the choice, you could then make the choice depending on how bad the traffic really is, this would be a great feature, who know someone of importance may be reading Happy

Revvin_Kevin · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 10:33 am Post subject:

The problem with jams on motorways is that they invariably occur between junctions so that you have no chance of escape. Rerouting at this point is useless cos' you can't get to the next junction and the blockage has often cleared by the time you do, anyway.

A recent incident (which spurred me in to getting SatNav) occurred on the M1 when I could see stationary traffic literally yards after an exit. I had to make an instant decision whether or not to take the exit. Not knowing where I was or which exit I was at or what the holdup was I decided to risk sticking with the Motorway. Bad move - turned out to be an RTA and I sat 100 yds past the exit for a very frustrating 1.5 hours.

Fore-warned is fore-armed as they say.

robpow · Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 8:51 pm Post subject:

The first PocketPC software to integrate with something like Livewire and include it with a map subscription which gives you regularly update maps like every 2-3 months will be on to a winner! Hmm... what's the URL of the patent office again? ;-)

Nomada · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2003 12:35 pm Post subject:

Hi

The only one I know is Route 66 2004. This is the text on their web:

"For Britain, Germany, Italy, France, and the Netherlands up-to-date traffic information is available using the internet to automatically recalculate the route. The ROUTE 66 Internet website provides this traffic information round-the-clock and free-of-charge"

But they don't have yet a version for Pocket PC. I got an email from them with this text:

"Dear Mr. Adell,

The next release of our software for Windows CE platform will be ROUTE 66 Route Navigate 2004. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you a specific date for the release.

Please visit our web site regularly to find out more about the product that we currently sell.

Kind regards,
ROUTE 66 Customer Support"

That's all!!

Nomada

dejongj

As per the title, the above two products using the GNS GPS/RDS receiver are quite mature, have been in use on the continent for a while.

But now for the bad news:
Navigon don't have UK maps
Alturion do have UK maps, but they are not TMC enabled yet. I have send an enquiry to their helpdesk, the response is soon....But that was back in August.

Alturion supports TMC via both GPRS (Internet) and RDS. They have got their own RDS to Internet gateway which is accessible for customers.

I just can't wait for the UK maps to come availabel.

On a Dutch forum there has been some speak that next versions of TomTom and Destinator will have this function as well. But again, the UK maps need to be prepared, so I wonder how long that will take.

RDS-TMC is quite standard now in all satnav in the Benelux and Germany, it has been available for over a year and a half in the UK (Launched april 2001) but product support is still limited....

Oh for those interested:
http://www.alturion.com
http://www.navigon.de
http://www.gns-gmbh.com

And a review of navigon but in German...
http://www.pocket.at/navigon/mobilebusiness.htm

If you guys need any translation or more info, don't hesitate to contact me. I think I have finally made my mind up and will purchase the Alturion solution as soon as my wife lets me ;-)

Regards,

Jean-Paul de Jong (UK)

swing · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2003 2:47 pm Post subject: Re: Are there any TMC products?

dejongj · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2003 3:46 pm Post subject:

Traffic-I looks very interesting, I have never heard of it. Do you know whether you can still make calls when your phone is busy on GPRS calls?

What website are you looking at for TMC data?

When there is lack of anything else, GPRS based solutions are great, however I really prefer the RDS-TMC channel as there is no subscription charge, nor a usage charge..

swing · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2003 3:56 pm Post subject:

dejongj · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2003 4:04 pm Post subject:

Steve,

Haven't you read my post above (mean that in a nice way...). The combined TMC/GPS receiver are in existence and have been in use for a while!

Alturion have just updated their solution so that TMC via RDS is now available for Norway and Sweden as well, beside the Benelux countries, Germany and France...

I really hope they update the map data for the UK soon....

PS. I totally disgarded the ITIS website as it has been useless in the past. They are actually the ones broadcasting this information as a sub-channel on Classic FM. The combined TMC/GPS receiver can be tuned into this channel, but unfortunately the uk pocketpc maps are currently lacking the information to link the two together....

Regards,

Jean-Paul

Darren

	PocketGPS
	Web