lack of updates from tomtom - good or bad?.

[iancjc]

I've been spring cleaning my pc today - deleting the tons of crap that I have downloaded over the past 18 months so that I only have useful updates.

I was surprised at the number of updates I had for ttn2 and tomtom gps drivers (from April to Oct 2003) - as ttn3 has been out for approx 10 weeks (20% of its life cycle) and we have had only one jump from 3.00 to 3.01 plus the traffic addin I wonder if tomtom have decided that the program is as good as it's going to get or has so many problems that a major update is required.

I personally don't think they will do anything about the address lookup before the next major change and as I have a stable system (even using a 2210 with bt) I'm not sure what else they may/can/want to do.

Equally I'm 90% sure that the traffic info isn't of sufficient quality/quantity to make me subscribe after the trial - I just hope that a lack of subscribers doesn't give them impression we don't want it - we do just that it has to be much much better than it is now.

The big problems for tomtom (and ultimately us) appears to be crappy data from the traffic supplier and crappy map data from tele atlas (a pattern starts to emerge).

One thing I am certain of is that tomtom must move to an online service at some point - broadband makes it far easier for large updates to be downloded - and provide the facility for upto date maps and addresses.

I can't think that there is much more a gps navigation system has to do that tomtom doesn't do now - so the only innovation will be on the speed of updates and the fine tuning of routes etc.

Ian

ps - has anyone who's used the french map encountered any problems? Off on holiday in a couple of weeks and not sure whether to buy a paper atlas!
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TyTn II (WM6.1) / tomtom one v2
TTN6.03 tomtom 7.xx (one)

[lbendlin]

Let's hope they are busy to finally develop a fix for the 2210/BT lockup/POI issue.

The TomTom Traffic is something of a Deja Vu - Mapopolis have tried something similiar with ClearRoute a while back, and they had to stop it because nobody was willing to pay for outdated and wrong information. Personally I don't like the idea of traffic systems competing with each other. Instead they should make TMC better, and make it available over the web.
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Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[PhuPhyt]

[Darren]

A nice idea but TMC is not free in this country and any receiver sold that was enabled for reception in the UK would have to pay a licence fee to iTIS. At least this way if you want it you pay, if you think it's rubbish (it's pretty poor but that's a TMC issue) then you don't.
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Darren Griffin

[DavidW]

Of course, the ideal would be if Trafficmaster realised that whilst Smartnav (their own navigation system) has a place, they're missing out on loads of money by licensing traffic data to companies such as TomTom and they start offering such licensing. They obviously don't see things this way.

I can only go by what Darren says, but it sounds plausible that Trafficmaster will only licence their data for standalone applications and not for navigation systems - as I don't think any navigation system other than Smartnav uses Trafficmaster data.

Unfortunately the ITIS data is sufficiently inferior that I think many people who do use it will probably not drop their Trafficmaster subscriptions. Whilst that is the case, Trafficmaster continue to get revenue whilst protecting Smartnav's market niche.


Smartnav is rather expensive! Whilst the basic hardware isn't too bad (RRP of 500 pounds), you have to pay a subscription to use it, or pay as you go. The pricing can be seen here. Bear in mind that Smartnav isn't a system like TomTom Navigator - most units don't even have a screen. It's more like Wayfinder in concept - the routing is done on a central computer, and downloaded through a mobile phone link (the cost of which is included in your Smartnav subscription).

You can have a very basic screen - details here - but that's another 200 pounds on top.


Personally, I don't think Smartnav and systems like TomTom Navigator are direct competitors - but Trafficmaster are a business and have every right to decide who they do or don't sell their data to. If TomTom were given access to Trafficmaster's data, I suspect that an annual Traffic GB subscription would cost more than 49 Euro.

Trafficmaster seem to be removing all cheap access to their data. I still have one of those old subscription-free bleeps and icon units (in my case, the AA Vodafone one). However, the premium rate phone number (2222 on Vodafone) changed some time ago from Trafficmaster to ITIS data. Since then, the device has often alerted correctly for some slow down, and the ITIS based phone line says all clear - so, once I realised that TomTom Traffic is not using Trafficmaster data, this result didn't surprise me.


Maybe the best we can do is learn how to get the best out of the ITIS data - and hope that ITIS gradually improve the quality of their data. If you turn off automatic rerouting, and use some intelligence as to when to reroute, maybe that will help. Contraflows seem to be shown with an arbitrarily high delay figure, even when there's highly unlikely to be a delay (like 11pm at night). Bearing in mind that outside peak traffic times, contraflows don't tend to back up that much, maybe the right move is not to block or re-route around a contraflow unless you think it highly like there will be a significant delay. After all, without TomTom Traffic, you'd have no idea within Navigator where there were roadworks.

One thing that might help is the ability not only to avoid a traffic incident, but avoid so many miles of that road before the incident as well.


Of course, there's nothing stopping you having RDS-TA mode selected on your radio, and possibly carrying some kind of Trafficmaster device as well to augment TomTom Traffic.

TomTom Traffic is far from perfect - but it's only going to be around 35 pounds a year, which is about what a year's subscription to Trafficmaster Freeway costs (which only gives details for two motorway junctions or 12 miles on an A road ahead). Savastore (Watford Electronics) don't have any of their cheap Freeway units left - a few months back they had loads for around 35 pounds - so you'll probably have to pay near RRP for one now (80 pounds).


Airtime for the more sophisticated Trafficmaster products is significantly more expensive than 35 pounds per year.



David

[iancjc]

Hi David

shame about the freeway units - I got 3 for 90 quid a while back - as for traffic, to be honest if the info isn't complete then there is little point using it at all. I have found that all things beiong equal thst the freeway unit is reliable - when I'm on a motorway and traffic slows to say 40mph for a mile or 2 if the tm unit hasn't piped up then I pretty much know that the road will be realitively clear and I can stay on it. Twice with tomtom on the a14 in the past 10 dyas tomtom would have had me drive into 5 and 8 miles jams - the info isn't good enough to be free let alone £35 per year plus gprs fee's.

The big downside of the freeway unit is that it often speaks up at the same time as tomtom and my radar detector leading to:

in 200 yards take the exit
M11 stationary traffic for 2 miles expect a 15 minute delay
K band
bloody gizmo's

all being said at the same time (ok the last one was my wife) but you get the rather loud picture!

As it stands tomtom will not get 35 pounds from me but they will as soon as the info improves.

Ian
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TyTn II (WM6.1) / tomtom one v2
TTN6.03 tomtom 7.xx (one)

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