TomTom Traffic Released

hornist · Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 9:38 am Post subject:

I've got Traffic set up on my iPaq 5550, with TTN3 GB and with BT connection to a Sony Ericsson Z600 on Vodafone. I've successfully set up GPRS simply by putting *99# in the 'bluetooth dial-up connection' settings. If I browse to an internet site from the iPaq's browser then it establishes a GPRS connection and browses fine.

However if Traffic tries to get data then the iPaq pops up with the 'Connecting' dialog bubble, saying 'Dialing: *99#...', but fails to connect and eventually comes up with a 'Cannot connect' box. According to the phone's display it does not even get as far as pairing with the phone.

FWIW, if the iPAQ is connected to the internet via the docking station or a wireless LAN then Traffic gets its data fine. Traffic also works fine if I connect to GPRS manually first.

Anyone seen something similar?
Paul

SRW · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 28, 2004 Posts: 4

You might need to set the APN name on your phone to "internet" (all lowercase) its probably set to Vodafone GPRS, then edit the iPaq connection settings to dial *99***1# and in the "Advanced" section add the following script in the box for dial-string commands +CGDCONT=1, "ip", "internet"

This worked for me after experiencing the same sort of problems.
Hope it helps.
Steve

hornist · Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 4:26 pm Post subject:

lostagain · Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 8:37 pm Post subject:

I got the ipaq 4150 working with my T39 via BT eventually.
It is not reliable, sometimes TT with connect to gprs and get the traffic data without any problem, other times it will establish a link (T39 displays <>) but not connect. If I manually force a connection by using the browser it will then use it.

Does anyone know the source of the traffic data ?
I assumed it would be trafficmaster, but I have a trafficmaster YQ and comparing the two displays there are lots of differences. I trust the YQ, it is always accurate. Has anyone actually confirmed the TT data is correct in real holdups ?

iancjc · Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 12:06 am Post subject:

Well tonight - just like last Friday...... Tomtom missed a 6 mile holdup on the A14/M11 - trafficmaster unit was saying AVOID tomtom didn't even register it.

I followed the advice of trafficmaster and radio 5 and missed the holdups - I really can't see me subscribing to traffic after the free trial...

At 5.50pm the traffic map wasn't showing a single holdup in East Anglia - this maybe mostly true but on a bank holiday weekend Friday I very much doubt it.

So for me it's now trafficmaster 2 - tomtom traffic 0

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

lostagain · Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 12:39 am Post subject:

Since my last post I had the YQ and PDA on side by side (with the pda on my network rather than via the phone) A Friday before a Bank Holiday is a good time to be looking at the holdups rather than sitting in one.

The pda was missing lots of holdups repored by the YQ. Also some of the warnings on the pda, contraflow's in particular are overstated, almost as if they are not using real time data at all.

If a magazine does a back to back review like this I expect the traffic add-on will be cruicified. This would be a great shame because the integration with the routeplanner is impressive. I was hoping to be able to dump the YQ and just have one gadget to look at in the car.

DavidW · Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 1:31 am Post subject:

hornist · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 10:47 pm Post subject:

lostagain · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 11:07 pm Post subject:

It looks as if the die is already cast.

I was on the A27 in the Worthing area. TT had delays when there were none, my Trafficmaster YQ had real delays that TT did not report.

Even for free it is not worth using with such useless data.

The shame is that TT will probably roll this out and then suffer lasting damage. Reputation is hard to win easy to lose !

Have a look at this:
Traffic-i, provides real-time Trafficmaster road information to smartphone users.

http://www.filesaveas.com/traffici.html

Since this is already using GPRS delivery it must be possible as a plug-in for the PDA.

bimikedorset · Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 11:43 pm Post subject: M25 Contraflow M3/M4

Wilko · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 17, 2003 Posts: 203

I've tried it for a week or so now, and find it misses most of the bad traffic jams around my area. I also find the massively increased time for tomtom to initially load unacceptable so I have uninstalled it and gone back to the original 3.01 version which I am happier with.

I may give it another go if it improves, until then I'm more than happy just setting off earlier for work and missing the local jams :D

MrT · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:12 am Post subject: Re: M25 Contraflow M3/M4

[quote="bimikedorset"][quote="lostagain"]

Darren · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:44 am Post subject:

Currently TMC data as used by TomTom is the only traffic data service available to GPS navigation applications with the exception of TrafficMaster who naturally have it on their navigation system but specifically will not licence it for use on others.

The Traffic-I service for Smartphones and PocketPC Phones is dire at best, unlike the full TrafficMaster YQ etc you simply get a set of coloured icons, no detailed information as to cause, speed etc and having tested the MS SMartphone version I have to say I no longer use it. A very poor implementation but again I suspect licence limitations may be behind the strangled data here.

I have been a long term YQ user and depsite it's shortcomings it was generally accurate albeit before the advent of GPS all it served to do was alert me in advance that I was about to enter a queue! TrafficMaster's Navigation system is no replacement for a good GPS system, fine for fleet users and other commercial customers etc but I think they are missing an opportunity to sell their data to customers such as TomTom and others here as clearly the iTIS TMC data collection system is not accurate enough to be of any real use.

I mention all this to explain that in the absence of any other traffic data service being available we should at least commend TomTom for trying to add what could be a must have feature if only the data was more accurate and reliable.
_________________
Darren Griffin

lostagain · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:08 am Post subject:

Re. Traffic-i lack of detail.
If you look at:
http://www.traffic-i.com/main/main_page.asp
It shows the speed icons in the same way as the YQ.

Do we have anyone with first hand experience of this who can comment ?

The idea is to divert miles before the que not join the back of it !

MrT · Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:21 am Post subject:

I find traffic-i very similar to the YQ with the addition of colour. Traffic-I addition to the traffic speed can show the predicted delay at an incident which the YQ does not. The YQ sometimes has a further information page when there is some major incident on the screen you are showing.

Personally I prefer the traffic-i screen to my YQ screen. It cost £40pa +GPRS as compared to £110pa (no GPRS) for the YQ. However it is a pain to try and switch between Traffic-I and TomTom on a regular basis whilst driving.

Traffic-I is designed for mobile phones and XDA2s running Windows Mobile 2003, the XDA-2 version will run on an IPAQ with GPRS with a few very minor bugs (the default of time delay needs to be selected every time).

Future releases may have problems as it is supposed to lock the licence to the IMEA of the mobile host and an iPAQ does not have an IMEA, but it does not prevent it from running or having a valid licence.

	PocketGPS
	Web