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1ka
Occasional Visitor
Joined: Sep 08, 2007
Posts: 34
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 Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:20 am Post subject: |
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| mikealder wrote: | | The speed on the road in question has to be lower than that used by IQ Routes 2 for an incident/ delay to be triggered. If the incident you are talking about happens every day at or around the same time then IQ routes will already contain a very low speed for that stretch of road - Mike |
Hmm, perhaps they should still show the traffic on screen so people know it is there. That would stop the numerous misunderstandings.
I personally would like to see TomTom reflect reality. Also, if I know it's going to be slow, then I might take an alternative route. I prefer to be moving, even if the overall journey is longer. |
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swarnford
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Joined: Apr 15, 2008
Posts: 2
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:39 am Post subject: An update after a good deal of mileage in the last few weeks |
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Following my initial report where I was quite positive (540), now I've done much more driving I fail to see how TT can charge for the service, it's just not accurate. Sometimes is great and works well at other times it just doesn't do what it says on the tin. Last week I sat in traffic for over 20 minutes on a dual carriage way near St Albans which was essentially a gridlock and no mention at all of any delay! Extremely frustrating and don't tell me there were no VF users sat in the jam, I was, for a start! I came across a similar but not so long delay at the same spot this week and to be fair it did report it this time on a 5 minute delay but the service is clearly unreliable as others are reporting too. In theory its a great service but TT surely have to provide a 99% accurate service before they can charge £8/month (or £6.67 for the 12 month subscription) which at this point in time is just pure cheek. I've also come across a good number of instances where motorway queues are coming up wrong on the display, either there are no queues in that particular stretch but its showing there are or there are queues and its saying there aren't. I'm loosing faith and my 540 is unfortunately not the answer to my prayers in terms of a reliable traffic reporting mechanism - will I be subscribing after my 3 month trial? Not at the current price.
And I still can't believe that speed camera information is still inaccurate - take the Baldock bypass for example, several old cameras are still showing and the new ones are not and this was changed months ago! |
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Fozzee
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Joined: Nov 08, 2007
Posts: 60
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:19 am Post subject: |
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| Sat in my car for 90 minutes trying to get out of Wembley Stadium Car Park on Wednesday night. Not a mention of any hold ups. Now I knew to obviously expect delays but come on it should still show up on the HD Traffic. |
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pcaouolte
Frequent Visitor
Joined: Dec 27, 2006
Posts: 998
Location: South Lincs, UK.
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Fozzee wrote: | | Sat in my car for 90 minutes trying to get out of Wembley Stadium Car Park on Wednesday night. Not a mention of any hold ups. Now I knew to obviously expect delays but come on it should still show up on the HD Traffic. |
I fail to see how you can expect tomtom to report a hold up in a car park 
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Paul |
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Graeme2812
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Joined: Mar 14, 2004
Posts: 297
Location: Dundee, Scotland UK
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Fozzee wrote: | | Sat in my car for 90 minutes trying to get out of Wembley Stadium Car Park on Wednesday night. Not a mention of any hold ups. Now I knew to obviously expect delays but come on it should still show up on the HD Traffic. |
I read somewhere on these forums that TT have the ability to 'zone off' certain areas where it's likely that a high number of VF sims not in transit would produce an in-accurate reading (i.e a football stadium)
Perhaps they [TT] hadn't re-activated the Wembly area as you left?
Over the last week I've found the accuracy and coverage to have have improved. Many more known 'Hot spots' in my area are now being flagged up, in particular areas that are not covered by the trafficmaster network. Looks like they could still be fine tuning the system, or perhaps there are just more x40 users out there contributing to the sim data.
That said, at 08:30 this morning my 540 wouldn't connect to the server.
Worth the £7.99?.......Yes if they continue to improve coverage and accuracy as in my experience they appear to be doing. Aske me this a month ago and i'd have said no.
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Graeme Bennett
Go 540 LIVE
App. 9.510.1234792.1 (2039,04/04/2013)
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DaveMatthews
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Joined: Dec 25, 2004
Posts: 221
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:58 pm Post subject: Re: An update after a good deal of mileage in the last few w |
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| swarnford wrote: | I sat in traffic for over 20 minutes on a dual carriage way near St Albans which was essentially a gridlock and no mention at all of any delay!
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I think key word here is "gridlock" - and your experience reflects mine. It seems to me that if traffic is at a virtual standstill, TT thinks that rather than this being a problem, it's just that several hundred drivers with Vodaphone mobiles have all chosen to pull up in lay-bys and park!
On the other hand, providing traffic is at least moving, albeit slowly, the HD Traffic service seems to function very well.
Given that HD Traffic is not free, I suspect it will mainly attract high-mileage drivers. But as this group of people are those most frequently affected by severe traffic problems, a lot of them are going to question the usefulness of the service. Unless TT get this problem sorted out, their customer base for Live Services will probably rapidly dimiish.
--
Cheers
Dave |
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phillevy
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Joined: Mar 01, 2006
Posts: 90
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| Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 9:10 am Post subject: |
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I have just had a complete reliable week on my journey to work - connecting and updating quickly every day with accurate information. I hope that this is a sign of them finally getting their act together.
Tomorrow I'm going up to York so that should give the system a work-out! I will report back in due course! |
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zzr1200
Lifetime Member
Joined: Jun 05, 2005
Posts: 205
Location: Gloucestershire
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| Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:20 pm Post subject: |
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| gatorguy6996 wrote: | | The live devices are so far selling poorly from what I hear, well short of TomTom's goal of 1Million connected devices by years' end. This is hampering the effectiveness, marketability and revenue potential of HDTraffic and live services. So IMO, TomTom is going to have a change of heart and release a "live" adapter for the existing x20/30 range devices. I would not be surprised to see an announcement along those lines by June/July. |
Anybody else have any view on this. The HD traffic on the 740 is the reason I am potentially considering changing from a 720 to a 740. If a seperate dongle becomes available to add HD traffic to my 720,that would be perfect. |
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Paden
Occasional Visitor
Joined: May 22, 2007
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: An update after a good deal of mileage in the last few w |
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| DaveMatthews wrote: | | swarnford wrote: | I sat in traffic for over 20 minutes on a dual carriage way near St Albans which was essentially a gridlock and no mention at all of any delay!
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I think key word here is "gridlock" - and your experience reflects mine. It seems to me that if traffic is at a virtual standstill, TT thinks that rather than this being a problem, it's just that several hundred drivers with Vodaphone mobiles have all chosen to pull up in lay-bys and park!
On the other hand, providing traffic is at least moving, albeit slowly, the HD Traffic service seems to function very well.
Given that HD Traffic is not free, I suspect it will mainly attract high-mileage drivers. But as this group of people are those most frequently affected by severe traffic problems, a lot of them are going to question the usefulness of the service. Unless TT get this problem sorted out, their customer base for Live Services will probably rapidly dimiish. |
Hi all
I'm gearing up to replace my TomTom One V2 & was looking at the 740.
I guess it's early days for the service but since "Not only does it use the traditional TrafficMaster and ITIS data, but it also introduces new data from the Vodaphone network producing what TomTom claim to be the best traffic information available" I'm surprised the above situation happens.
A few years ago I had an AA Roadwatch 1800 which also worked off TrafficMaster & this would display "gridlock", so even if no "drivers with Vodaphone mobiles" were in the jam shouldn't one of the other sources have flagged the problem?
Cheers, Paul |
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Andy_P
Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jun 04, 2005
Posts: 19991
Location: West and Southwest London
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| Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 12:37 am Post subject: Re: An update after a good deal of mileage in the last few w |
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| Paden wrote: | | ... shouldn't one of the other sources have flagged the problem? |
Yes they should...
My guess is that people are putting far too much emphasis on the tracking of Vodaphone signals. I bet ~90% of the HD Traffic info really still comes from the other, traditional sources. But as we all know, they can be pretty poor at times too. |
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perussell
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Joined: May 12, 2006
Posts: 292
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| Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:19 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | But as we all know, they can be pretty poor at times too. |
.........and which is why I continue to pay my £30/year subscription for my Trafficmaster Freeway. Between that and my 540 I don't get caught out too often.
I still see phantom hold ups though especially at road works but I am beginning to think/realise that this may be because, for example, a set of SPECS cameras on the M-way is extending the journey time beyond what IQ routes would expect by slowing down the traffic for a few miles i.e. it's not necessarily congestion but just an extended journey time because of the reduced speed.
That said a couple of weeks back I came up against a complete section closure on the M42 for overnight roadworks which went totally unreported. Had I been aware of it I could have diverted around the other side of Birmingham and missed it all together.
Good but by no means perfect - that will be the day when I have sufficient trust in my 540 to dispense with the Trafficmaster subscription and we are certainly not there yet! |
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Paden
Occasional Visitor
Joined: May 22, 2007
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:27 am Post subject: |
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Hi all
Do the Live TomToms include in the subscription service the same information that the RDS TMC TRAFFIC RECEIVER provides?
Cheers, Paul |
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matthewj
Frequent Visitor
Joined: Apr 03, 2006
Posts: 751
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:17 am Post subject: |
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| Just a note to say that the HD traffic info was very accurate on my Easter travels. Particularly yesterday, with lots of heavy traffic travelling south on the M6, it was showing the start and stop of crawling traffic to within 100 yards or so. Fortunately I was on the other carriageway, so didn't have to worry about the 9.8M of traffic. |
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DennisN
Tired Old Man
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 14906
Location: Keynsham
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:50 am Post subject: |
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| Paden wrote: | Hi all
Do the Live TomToms include in the subscription service the same information that the RDS TMC TRAFFIC RECEIVER provides?
Cheers, Paul |
Sorry - I saw this when you first asked, but I didn't answer because I don't have a "Live" device myself and expected someone else would reply.
The Live service is supposed to be better than all the other traffic services provided by TomTom because, in addition to the other traffic information TT gathers, it also includes information about stationary or slow moving Vodafone sim cards, including the ones inside all the Live devices out there. It is claimed that the TomTom service is clever enough to deduce traffic flow from this information. Personally, I don't believe it, but then I'm a grumpy fat old slob who is still waiting for the devices to be clever enough to do other things they've been claiming to do for ages, like work for hands free phone, voice recognition and Mapshare corrections, for example.
I'm afraid TT's bells and whistles are a bit like the seaside fortune teller - tell enough fortunes and you're bound to get a couple of bits vaguely right amongst the dross.
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Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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Paden
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Joined: May 22, 2007
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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 Thanks for the reply Dennis.
Think I'll get one & see how the free Live trial goes.
I do a fair bit of driving so will hopefully be able to assess it within a month & it can go back if no good.
Cheers, Paul |
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