TomTom Identifies Traffic Blackspots During Snow Disruption

RobBrady

Following the wintry weather which gripped the UK over the weekend, TomTom has identified the biggest problem areas which experienced disruption.

The accident blackspots saw motorists facing long stretches of difficult road conditions and congested traffic, with some drivers delayed for hours on end.

TomTom compiled the data through their HD Traffic service. According to the data, the weekend weather caused more than 20 separate traffic jams of three hours or more across the country.

Major A roads and motorways were common additions to the final list, with the M40, M42, M1 and M25 all suffering traffic jams which delayed motorists overnight during bitterly cold temperatures.

By far the worst affected area was the M40, which appeared three separate times on the list - more often than any other road.

Delays of up to seven hours were experienced on the M40 at around midnight on Saturday with the areas of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire all affected and featuring on the list of blackspots.

In terms of the longest delays experienced, the M11 stretch from London to Cambridgeshire took the title, with motorists halted for seven and a quarter hours during the early hours of Sunday morning.

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Robert Brady

mikealder · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 7:40 pm Post subject:

Were these delays / road closures actually reported accurately on the device that an end user has purchased otherwise stats such as those reported are useless offering information some 48 to 72 hours AFTER the event - Mike

AliOnHols · Pocket GPS Verifier Joined: Oct 15, 2008 Posts: 1941

Or are they preparing the ground for reducing the HD Traffic horizon this winter?.

Sorry, couldn't resist!
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Darren · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 9:01 pm Post subject:

M8TJT · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 9:02 pm Post subject:

Nah, it'll be the fog that does that.

Guivre46 · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:34 pm Post subject:

When I turned on my 550 on Sunday morning, there were nearly 2000 miles of queues within a 75 mile radius. As I'm close to the M25 and M40 that seemed possible. I did not browse the map to see specific roads. The only surprise was that so many people were caught out by such a well forecasted event. They have tens of thousands of tons of grit, but how many grit spreaders?
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Andy_P · Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:50 pm Post subject:

I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed by PGPSW apparently just regurgitating all of TomTom's press releases as news!

This lack of critical assessment does your independent journalistic status no good at all.

TomTom Traffic is simply NOT "identifying the biggest problem areas". In fact it seems to be missing long-term road closures completely.

Here are THREE recent examples in London:

1. Hammersmith flyover - closed for 3 weeks due to de-icing salt rotting the structure.
TomTom traffic reported some congestion in the area, but would happily route you over the closed flyover. Not just on the first day, but for the whole duration of the closure.

2. Brentford High Street / London road - closed since last Wednesday due to a burst water main after the freezing weather.

Again, TomTom HD Traffic has been reporting there are traffic delays in the area, but had no idea that the road has been closed for 7 days.

3. Garratt Lane, Wandsworth - another burst water main due to the freeze. Closed on Monday night, I think (might have been Sunday). TomTom didn't know and tried to route me along it.

And it wasn't just LIVE traffic on the device itself. The TomTom on-line route planner website was just as clueless about these road closures.
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"Settling in nicely" ;-)

Darren · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 9:30 am Post subject:

Clearly we dropped the ball here. I think we all know the long standing issues with TomTom's HD Traffic.

Whilst I'd hope it's clear that this is TomTom PR and not some new scoop we're claiming an exclusive on, we need to give more consideration to regurgitating it, even on a slow news day.

I'm just as guilty as anyone else of this, but we'll try to take more care before doing this in future.

In the meantime, I will, once again, put some of these issues to TomTom and ask for their comment.
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Darren Griffin

spook51 · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 9:47 am Post subject:

Thank you Darren. It has become increasingly tedious to see almost every TomTom topic degenerate into the usual whinge about Traffic.

M8TJT

philce · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2005 Posts: 29

Darren · Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 11:53 am Post subject:

I've already approached TomTom and we'll be writing it up as a story once we've gathered all the details.
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Darren Griffin

philce · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2005 Posts: 29

philce · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2005 Posts: 29

Darren · Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 4:10 pm Post subject:

We spent some time gathering a list of questions and have only recently submitted them to TomTom for comment. Will keep you posted once we have some answers and are in a position to write it all up.
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Darren Griffin

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