How accurate is traffic??

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I really was looking forward to avoiding all the traffic I deal with on a daily basis, I got the tomtom traffic, upgraded my cell account, and viola, traffic reports.
Unfortunately, they were totally inaccurate. In fact, I've learned to do the opposite of what it says. This morning my commute was a parking lot and it said it was clear sailing. Yesterday it was trying to get me to go another route home, and just on a hunch I decided to risk it, the road was wide open, no delays at all.
So where does TomTom get it's traffic info, how accurate and up to date is it? I live in Boston MA area and the traffic can be mind numbingly brutal at times. Should I just give it up and deal with it or will the accuracy improve?
Anyone else in this area have a TomTom and see what I see or are yours true to traffic reports.
Thanks!

 

[Pedro2NR]

Someone on the forum also asked this question and I think it was answered.
With TT Traffic, it depends also on ones area. I hear positive and negative feedback from TT Traffic.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I was afraid of that. Thanks for the answer. I tried searching but couldn't find this type of question.

 

[offthegrid]

I thought they used TeleAtlas traffic which gets its data from Inrix.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

So is this just an anomoly or are other people experiencing the same issue. It's not like it's a little off, it's WAY off, to the point of making it useless.

 

[Skizza]

Up until about a week ago, Traffic in Los Angeles was great. Always on point. I ignored the "re-route" a few times because I didn't see anything ahead and regretted it everytime as I ran into traffic just as my 510 stated.

Recently however, I haven't gotten any valid traffic info. This morning the freeway was backed up for almost my entire commute and I didn't get a peep from TT. It seems to me that it only notifies you if there is an accident, not if Traffic is just creeping along at 10 miles an hour.

 

[itsme]

Up until about a week ago, Traffic in Los Angeles was great. Always on point. I ignored the "re-route" a few times because I didn't see anything ahead and regretted it everytime as I ran into traffic just as my 510 stated.

Recently however, I haven't gotten any valid traffic info. This morning the freeway was backed up for almost my entire commute and I didn't get a peep from TT. It seems to me that it only notifies you if there is an accident, not if Traffic is just creeping along at 10 miles an hour.

I thought it was me. I was great now it's just God awful. I'm in the middle of traffic and it says it's clear. Now I can't even get traffic. I try to use it now and it says my subcription has expired and shows no way to renew. But if it's getting this bad it may not be worth it.

 

[jwiv]

I thought it was me. I was great now it's just God awful. I'm in the middle of traffic and it says it's clear. Now I can't even get traffic. I try to use it now and it says my subcription has expired and shows no way to renew. But if it's getting this bad it may not be worth it.

Call customer support and they'll reset your traffic account.

Right now, they're still working on the deployment and getting it implemented in the States. As far as I can tell, they've broken something, because I've got the same issue as mentioned here - a few months ago there was a drastic improvement in traffic reporting and now it's worse than ever.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I hate to say it, but I'm glad it's not just me. Has anyone contacted TT about this? I'll give it a shot, but they don't seem to be real quick on the reply to help emails.

 

[Skizza]

phew, just like you guys, I thought it was just me. Truthfully, calling them is useless, as they'll just give you some scripted answer about how it's a work in progress that's why it hasn't officially launched yet blah blah blah.

 

[danh1225]

TT traffic is horrible and like everyone else here, just a few weeks ago it was great. TT support tells me the problem is with my phone company, who says they have changed nothing. TT just won't admit the problem is at their end! Maybe someday I'll turn it back on and it will work again. That's 2 strikes for TT! NA maps 665 and Traffic!

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Hmmm. The traffic was accurate this morning. The MA turnpike eastbound was bad and it was spot on to where it ended, how long the delay was, etc. Maybe it's up and running. The drive home will be a good test, there's always traffic on the way home, lets see how it plays out.
There's a light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train.

 

[itsme]

Good, I just got back from a 3017mile trip using my Go 910. I went from Los Angeles to MT. Rushmore on the 15th thur 22nd. It gave me no traffic info in Co, WY, NV, SD, and CA. Maybe they rest it thiss week. I'll try mine in the morning and see what happens.

 

[danh1225]

Miracle of Miracles! Traffic seems to be up and working! But of course, TT says the problem was not at their end.

 

[itsme]

It seems to be woreking pretty well today.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I have to say that the traffic is now pretty accurate, I got around a major jam yesterday evening. This is for the Boston Metro area.

 

[Oscar Dk1]

Well, considering the facts, TomTom provides the means to obtain the data, but the information is not generated by them... So, I think it's like a PC with a terrible connection: the modem may be working fine, but if the Internet provider is not the best you cannot blame the modem...
Of course, if the trial expires, that's a different story!

 

[offthegrid]

I finally activated the traffic trial just a few minutes ago.

I've got some good tools to compare it to whats available out there for traffic info. I've got traffic.com (wls.live.com) and Inrix traffic maps for my phone both free but neither provides automatic rerouting based on traffic so I hope this works halfway decently.

They really must not be happy with the service to keep it in free beta all this time.

 

[itsme]

It's been pretty good for awhile now. I really like it.

 

[jzerocsk]

I also observed the improvement and then utter collapse and then return to decency.

However, the traffic service dropped a real bomb on me last week: As I was driving home from work, suddenly it popped up a traffic alert for an accident, but with 0 Min. delay. I had one opportunity to get off of the freeway before reaching the spot identified, but since it said 0 Min. and has been fairly accurate lately, I took it at its word.

At pretty much precisely the spot indicated on the display, traffic came to a crawl. There was a 2-mile backup. But that's not the worst part - the worst part is that TomTom showed a black "REALLY SLOW TRAFFIC" line on the road that was pretty much dead on to where the traffic jam started and ended! They KNEW the distance of the delay and the average speed, yet for some reason they just declined to calculate the delay time?

It's pretty goofy. I'm glad I'm not paying for it, and if they don't show some consistent results by the time they roll it out for real, I certainly won't pay for it.