TT and Garmin Traffic

Kremmen · Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 6:30 am Post subject: TT and Garmin Traffic

I have an Alpine SatNav built in to my Honda. It works very well for what I generally need and gives traffic.

The one feature I do find useful is that I don't have to have a route plotted to see where the traffic is. It shows solid red bars alongside the problem roads from start to finish of the problem.

The snag is that the TMC RDS on this system only updates every 15 minutes so it can be a bit out of date.

Do either TT or Garmin have a similar feature that will display traffic even if you don't have a route plotted ?

If they do and considering they advertise that they update traffic every 2 minutes this would be an advantage, especially as I do the western section of the M25 daily.

I've hunted everywhere to try and get some images of traffic in action - but so far failed.
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sussamb · Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 7:04 am Post subject:

Can't say for TT but my Garmin (1490T) will show traffic without a route being plotted, so I guess all the newer ones will also Confused

Andy_P · Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 12:16 am Post subject:

TomToms also show the traffic on the map (as different coloured bars on the roads depending on the severity of the delay) when you don't have a route set.
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Kremmen · Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:44 am Post subject:

Excellent stuff, thanks

Next stage is to get a newer phone with Android 4 with bluetooth tethering so I can use my data plan.
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Andy_P · Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 8:45 am Post subject:

...Or get one of the tomtom models that have a SIM card built in, so are always connected?
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Brickie64 · Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:30 pm Post subject:

Seeing as this topic concerns Garmin and TomTom traffic, does anyone know what data sources are used by both these manufacturers for their traffic information?
Presumably some of the government infrastructure in the UK where all of the newer roads seem to have traffic sensors built in are used to detect standing or slow traffic on some major roads at least...
Assuming it's a question of data quality rather than refresh and broadcast delays, shouldn't we see equal traffic alert performance between the top of the range TomTom and Garmin devices?
I've always been a bit nervous about changing my route based on traffic information and delays but I have to admit that on occasion I have suffered because of it.

Does anyone have HD traffic TT and Digital Traffic Garmin devices that can be used together to do a side by side comparison on a route somewhere? Would be very interesting to see how they differ in real life situation as so much of the discussions seem to be speculative.
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Andy_P · Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 11:57 pm Post subject:

I can't speak for Garmin, but TomTom have always been a little cagey about stating their EXACT third-party data sources, just mentioning something like "Police and other highways agencies".

But their massive advantage over their competitors is the huge amount of anonymous location 'probe' data from every Vodaphone mobile phone user in the UK (and every TomTom with a Vodaphone SIM card inside) that they use to create their "HD Traffic" system.

They also have the historic "IQ Routes" journey time data too.

There's a very good technical description of the two systems here:

http://www.tomtom.com/lib/doc/download/HDT_White_Paper.pdf
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Kremmen · Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 6:31 am Post subject:

AliOnHols · Pocket GPS Verifier Joined: Oct 15, 2008 Posts: 1942

Hi Kremmen, there are discussions elsewhere about TT using 2G sim cards in their new models and that 2G may be phased out in favour for 3G/4G. Not sure how true this is but it may be worth waiting for the facts to settle before deciding which model to buy.
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Andy_P · Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 7:54 pm Post subject:

Brickie64 · Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:46 pm Post subject:

Kremmen · Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 1:58 pm Post subject:

Glad I asked now. I will hold off if new developments are in the pipeline - thanks :D
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