Garmin and traffic

highlander317 · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 01, 2006 Posts: 32

Recently changed jobs and am now back on the road again, sadly I didn't realise that Garmin had ended their hd traffic service.
I feel quite hard by, probably along with many others paying for something marked as "Lifetime" yet expired already.
After a bit of digging about various sites, I eventually found that it indeed ended in June 2021.

Anyone having any luck using a smartphone connected to the sat nav or via FM rds signals? I've been using it for the last 3 weeks with no mention of traffic, despite being caught in many queues caused by the fuel scaremongered lemmings and roadworks, not a single mention on the sat nav of anything along my journey.

I'm using a Nuvi 2598 LMTD, the cable powers up ok, so I've hopefully ruled out a faulty cable.

Cheers for any advice or help

Kremmen · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 2:12 pm Post subject:

I'm finding the Smartlink traffic just as good as the old TA cable traffic.

I have used Smartlink in the past and it was terrible but it seems vastly improved. I reckon they've switched from viaMichelin to Inrix because the alerts are identical to what I was used to.
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DashCam:
Viofo A119 V3

sussamb · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:56 am Post subject:

Should work ok, mine does. Have you checked to see if it's paired properly with your device? When it is it should be obvious when you select the traffic app on your nuvi.
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Where there's a will ... there's a way.

INTRANET · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 01, 2021 Posts: 19

I have Garmin Drive app connected with my Nav. And as far where I drive it shows traffic info.

marksfish · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2021 7:21 pm Post subject:

I'm still using the traffic cable on mine and getting alerts/ re- routes, some out of date (such as in Bristol this weekend, but then Waze wasn't 100%). I haven't updated mine to remove the service yet, so not sure if that is helping?
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Garmin Drivesmart 51 LMT-D Europe

Kremmen · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:33 am Post subject:

That's odd.

The digital service that transmitted the traffic data has been turned off !

TPEG or whatever it was has no data. Maybe yours has defaulted to TMC RDS which is still working AFAIK.
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DashCam:
Viofo A119 V3

marksfish · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 7:06 am Post subject:

I'm presuming it is TMC as I haven't changed any settings on the unit since digital was deactivated. I'll have a look at what it is using when I next fire it up.
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Garmin Drivesmart 51 LMT-D Europe

Kremmen · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2021 8:23 am Post subject:

TMC only covers motorways and main A roads. It's very slow to update and as a result can lead to many inaccurate reports both emerging and cleared roads.

Honda have stopped supplying it on their Garmin built in systems as it's so poor.
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DashCam:
Viofo A119 V3

cjay2412 · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 30, 2008 Posts: 103

to be fair inrix tmc which is the fallback option now digital isn't available has reasonable coverage with all motorways and a_roads covered including slip roads, 98000km of B-roads and 3200km of unclassified roads covered. bandwidth is a problem for the service. during rush hour, for example, low impact incidents i.e. roadworks with no delay won't be broadcast favouring higher impact incidents like congestion. updates are also slower, updated at a rate of <15mins continuous. the more incidents in an area the longer the update time. yes it does have its issues but it's not a bad service

Kremmen · Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 4:55 am Post subject:

If you can I'd still recommend trying Smartlink as it's very good now.
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DashCam:
Viofo A119 V3

cjay2412 · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 30, 2008 Posts: 103

Yes, digital traffic is better than TMC. If you can use it. If not TMC is an ok backup

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