Live Traffic - My experiences so far

[HappyTrucker]

I saw a thread that mentions something I'm about to a few days back, but a search hasn't thrown it up so apologies if this repeats anything.

I've been using the 740 with Live Traffic now for about a week, give or take and I still can't make my mind up about the traffic info. When it's been throwing up traffic warnings I've been ignoring them until I get a feel for how (in)accurate the info generally turns out to be. So far, on the routes I'm usually on it seems to have been fairly accurate. I've watched the 'delay' meter change inline with I would expect to see on the M62 Westbound at 10am.

However, I have noticed that as a wider view, the traffic might not be so hot. I've heard at least 2 road closures on the radio last week that never appeared on TT Live, even though it was 'rush hour' and the roads in question would have affected a lot of people. Also, I'm currently looking at the Live Traffic on the TomTom website and Greater London is full of traffic warnings. On the 740? Nowt. Not a single symbol showing up. Some of these delays are listed at 20+mins so hardly insignificant if that's where you're heading. One of these, according to the website, is a 13mile queue due to an accident on the M25 J10 to J7. Not a sign of it on the TomTom unit and it's just let me plan a route along that stretch of road without any warning at all.

Why is the info on the unit so different from the actual realtime info? Is it CPU/Memory? If so, then maybe they should have thought of that and released these units with more of both?

[gatorguy6996]

Part of the "perceived" problem with lack of traffic delay notieces is just that. . . a perception. Unlike TT's on-line traffic, your 740 will only display negative traffic incidents. In other words, incidents that cause a delay to a specific road segment beyond what IQR already predicts. If at 4pm on a Friday afternoon a segment of the M1 is IQR-predicted to have slow traffic with a 10 minute delay, anything less than or equivalent to that delay that's reported by live traffic conditions, will not be reported on your 740. IQR data takes precedence over any reported traffic issue. This makes perfect sense as far as consideration of current traffic conditions. If IQR has already taken into account that the M1 is always delayed at 4pm on Fridays, current traffic reports showing the same have no effect on your calculated route. With that said, personally I'd still prefer to see notice of traffic slowdowns whether they are already allowed for in IQR data. Sometimes I use my traffic reporting features to simply monitor, no destination set. The way traffic is implimented on the x40's makes it difficult or impossible to determine where traffic congestion exists when there is no active route.
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Garmin 1695 / 255 / 760 w/MSN - Droid w/Google nav + Navigon - Navigon 8100T - Dakota10 - GPSMap76C - GeoMate Jr.

[HappyTrucker]

Up to a point I'd probably go along with most of that reasoning - if it wasn't for the fact that major 'A' road closures don't always appear on it or if it would avoid the bit that is supposed to be 'habitually' slow. However, as I said it let me plan a route that took in a stretch of the M25 that was showing 20+ mins delay due to an accident which can't be taken as 'normal'. Bear in mind it's currently a Sunday afternoon / early evening and I don't think delays of more than 20 minutes on the M25 would be classed as normal.

An extreme example would be the current (as I write this) 61 mins delay due to an accident (on the M25 again) between J23 and J25. I'm fairly certain that at 7:25pm on a SUnday evening there isn't normally a 61 mins delay on that section of road. 740 still not showing it and still let me plan a route along that section of road, even though alternative must be quicker than 61 mins.

The only thing that is coming to mind is maybe the unit only shows traffic delays that could be reached in say, 2 hours or so (I noticed nothing south of Birmingham or North of Carlisle showing on the map, both of which are < 2hrs from here). Reasoning that anything further away has more than a good chance of being gone by the time I would get there? As I got closer to the incident and it was still there maybe it would pick it up and offer an alternative?

[falkirk81]

Live traffic is only downloaded for your 'area'.

In bolton i would NOT expect the TT to have the traffic in london. I live in newcastle, and get from edinburgh/ glasgow down to manchester area.

Remeber this because its an important way that traffic system works!
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Tomtom GO 1005 LIVE

iPhone 12

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