TomTom 2535M Live HD Traffic

I upgraded from a Go 740 Live unit to the new 2535 Live a week ago and have noticed what seems to be an issue with the traffic reporting. On my old unit, if I happenned to check traffic on the internet, say on google maps, and noticed patches of traffic on my route that were displayed iin yellow or red, they'd both show up on my Go 740 Live when driving the route. On my 2535, yellow traffic areas dont seem to show up. The RED (extreme) areas of traffic show up though. Anyone else noticing this? In fact, often I'll press the Show Traffic on route option on the 2535 and it'll show a map of the route and will indeed show patches of yellow traffic on my route that I am either already driving through or approaching, but that same traffic doesnt show on the main navigation screen like it does in red traffic areas. I realize that it's early into the release but thusfar it seems LESS accurate than my 740 Live was... Hopefully the yellow (slow) areas will be reported on the navigation screen in an update. I'm hoping so anyway.

I don't think the traffic is missing, there is a bug in the interface.

The GO740 traffic showed:
- yellow = light traffic
- orange = medium traffic
- red = heavy traffic

Recently, routes.tomtom.com implemented a coloring change:
- orange = light traffic
- red = medium traffic
- dark red = heavy traffic

It appears Tomtom goofed in implementing it in the GO2535LIVE. The navigation view, with the traffic sidebar on the right, uses the new routes.tomtom.com colors. The browse map view uses the old GO740 colors.

From what I can tell, the same traffic is on both devices, on all screens. It's just a coloring bug.

Ahhhhh. That kinda fits what is happening. Thanks for the reply. I still think that there may be something else going on because when I'm actually sitting in pretty HEAVY traffic, the navigation screen shows nothing, not even medium traffic. Just the regular red "follow this route" shading as usual instead of the little "arrowed" and color coded path showing traffic. So if the traffic is heavy and the new 2535 is supposed to display that as dark red, why would it show as "orange or yellow" when you select "Show Traffic on Route" instead of red or dark red on that screen? Im not sure if it's a software bug or bad information coming from their sources. For example, when I arrived at work after getting through the traffic on my route, I pulled google maps and bing maps of that same area and neither showed RED for that stretch of highway (approx 6-7 miles) although stretches were literally going 10-15 mph. They both showed yellow instead (bing and google).

This is a problem since if TT is only using their own probes someone using a TT has to be stuck in traffic to show it.

But they're not... The GPRS signals (from Vodaphone users in the UK, not just TomTom users) is only one of the data providers they use. They also get traffic info form the more usual sources.

Badboy38,

One thing unique to Tomtom is that they have IQroutes historical time-of-day/day-of-week traffic already embedded in the map. The HD traffic server knows this, and only reports traffic if it is slower than the predictable traffic.

It's quite possible that the Tomtom knew of the 15mph traffic via IQroutes, and therefore no delay would be colored on the traffic bar or on the map. This predictable delay does impact routing, arrival time estimates, and the total delay number on the upper right corner of the driving screen.

The best way to confirm this is to see whether the arrival time estimate changes as you drive through the jam. If not, than the traffic was predictable and known.

Andy_P,

Another cross-the-pond difference is that there is no cellphone probe data used in the USA. They use some other undisclosed source, in addition to speeds of any LIVE edition of a Tomtom PND or iPhone app. The lack of cellphone data should mean that USA traffic would be less reliable, but I still find it amazingly reliable from whatever source they've got.

Hmmmm? Never thought of the possibility of them incorporasting the IQ routes in so maybe that's something new in terms of not displaying slow traffic. In my case it was on the heavier side so I would think that they'd give a visual confirmation of heavier traffic instead of it being "predictive" when it's that slow and backed up but who know's. I called TomTom support to inquire about the traffic not showing and they said in all honesty with it being so early into the release that they don't have all the answers just yet and would get back to me in a few days. I guess as I kinda expected it's part of grabbing anything that's brand new. You have to be willing to endure the early tweaks...I'll report anything new when they get back to me.

No matter how heavy the predictable traffic is, it won't be colored on the map as long as it's predictable.

Tomtom only colors in traffic that is more than normal for the day-of-week / time-of-day.

Apologies for jumping in the middle... I've never had a TomTom before, and am currently using a garmin 755t. The 2535m Live has caught my eye as a "next device", and Live / HD traffic combined with IQ Routes sounds very appealing (as long as the rest of the features satisfy).

Per your comment above - sounds like you can't count on the map to show you where congestion is when a road is normally congested (at least if time of day matches). I *do* appreciate the idea of showing exceptions to normal traffic. However I also travel to a number of cities in a given month, many of which are first time visits - and I wouldn't know if a road is usually slow or not. I imagine ETA will be correct, but I just won't have any idea if there's a problem up ahead, will I?

Thinking it would be nice to have an option to display traffic slower than posted limits - whether or not this is typical for a given time of day, and let the user decide whether this is shown.

- Jon

That was one of my complaints about the way TomTom shows traffic. If it's predicted by IQR it doesn't show you. If you regularly drive an area, or if it's your hometown, that may not be any issue I suppose. But in my case I'm often going to cities I'm less familiar with to quote or survey jobs. When I have my "druthers" I prefer to avoid traffic congestion, taking a side road or alternate route if I'm not in a hurry. Tomtom live traffic may not show that metro congestion and I end up right in the middle of it.