IQ routes eta still way off

[northdakotaweatherman]

I have now owned my 730 for a total of 24 hours and have updated my maps and it appears the firmware version is 8.3. I live in North Dakota and I punched in a trip from Minot to Bismarck which would normally take about 90 minutes on the highway. (US 83--mostly 70mph with a few small towns) My TT 730 says it will take a little less than 3 hours. When I first plugged in a route home from Bismarck the IQ screen came up and said that in North Dakota there isn't enough data to optimize and it basically didn't work. What am I missing? Will it learn after a trip or two? Or am I basically screwed if I want good eta's? The eta works fine in town, but anyplace where the speed limit is higher than 30 it doesn't work too well. Any ideas?
thanks. BTW, I haven't seen the IQ routes "disclaimer" today, but it showed up twice yesterday.

 

[mvl]

IQroutes is sourced by users who enable the "submit anonymous data" setting in their tomtom. You're getting the disclaimer message because not enough north dakotans have purchased tomtoms (and turned on that setting) and driven your roads, so tomtom doesn't have any input data.

If you (and others in your neighborhood) turn on the submission feature, and connect to HOME often, Tomtom will get more data about your neighborhood. But the data resides statically on the map, so you'll need to purchase a new map or map subscription to get newer IQ data. IQroutes is only 9 months old, and is improving dramatically with each quarterly map release.

 

[northdakotaweatherman]

thank you for a very well explained response. I am going to ask two more things just to be sure that I have a good handle on the situation.

I won't see any improvement in my ETA's in North Dakota unless I keep purchasing new maps.
The TT doesn't really "learn" on my unit.

Is that true? BTW... I have a garmin 255w in my other car, so I put them together and in town the TT 730 did better than the Garmin for ETA's. It wasn't until there were highways involved that had higher speed limits that the TT started lagging behind. As far as the POI's, the TT did much better with food choices, and the garmin did better with gas stations.

Again, thanks for an explation I can understand

 

[YouthInAsia]

Just for kicks, I created your same route on my new 720 (8.302 and 825 maps) with IQ Routes on and off...my results were very similar to yours. (Just thought you'd like to know it isn't just your unit).

As a side note, where I live (NC), my 720's routing estimates are *very* accurate; maybe with some more users, route estimates in your area will become accurate as well...IQ Routes is really a great feature.

Good luck!

<Thanks for the info, mvl>

 

[northdakotaweatherman]

reply

i appreciate you trying my route on your 720. I guess that over time things will get better. I love most everything about the TT, but the eta thing drives me crazy.
Man....if garmin and tomtom just got together...... it would be one hell of a gps!

 

[mvl]

thank you for a very well explained response. I am going to ask two more things just to be sure that I have a good handle on the situation.

I won't see any improvement in my ETA's in North Dakota unless I keep purchasing new maps.
The TT doesn't really "learn" on my unit.

Is that true? BTW... I have a garmin 255w in my other car, so I put them together and in town the TT 730 did better than the Garmin for ETA's. It wasn't until there were highways involved that had higher speed limits that the TT started lagging behind. As far as the POI's, the TT did much better with food choices, and the garmin did better with gas stations.

Again, thanks for an explation I can understand

Yes, you'll have to purchase new maps for more data. The subscriptions are really cheap, you may want to consider a purchase.

Garmins (at least the high end ones) have a self-learning capability. Tomtom chose IQroutes (crownsourcing) instead of self-learning. This means that tomtom's are more accurate with congestion since it knows predictable traffic from tons of users. Garmins are more accurate in open spaces, since it can learn if you drive faster or slower than others by habit (IQroutes gives you an average driver's speed). So what's you're experiencing with Garmin vs Tomtom is expected.

Edit: Also, IQroutes ignores speed limits, but perhaps if you're in "disclaimer mode", speed limits are considered. You may want to edit your road's speed limits in map share to see if it helps ETA.

As far as POIs, the 720 map has reduced POIs to fit on the 2GB space. I responded in your other post on how to get all the POIs into the 720. I'd expect Tomtom to perform more in line with the Garmin once you get the big POI file. Also, Tomtom is the only device that lets you edit/change/delete POIs on your own, so if you have a favorite gas station (or any POI) that is missing/wrong, you can go to mapshare and fix it.

 

[northdakotaweatherman]

thanks again for your responses. I am going to try and put the larger POI database on the 730. I can put up with whacked out ETA's if the poi's get better. Besides, over the weekend I set up 7 routes in town (running errands) and not once did the TT eta change while in route. It didn't need to as it nailed them all. The Garmin always started one or two minutes different but fixed itself in route. I'm not nocking the garmin, but in town it was outperformed by the TT. But the garmin had ALL the poi's, the TT missed on two of them.

 

[Roger L]

POI Downloads

I've been intently following this thread. I'm also interested in downloading the complete POI listing for my TT720. I tried to find the post that MVL mentions in his last post of this thread but I was unable to find it. I know that this is not a POI subject thread but I hope that someone can point me to the post he mentions on installing the complete POI listing. Thanks.

 

[CynicX]

Yep, Tomtom's ETA's are over exaggerated always. Good thing unless you get stuck in a 50 car pile up you'll never be late....

In rural areas I generally gain about 15 minutes per Tomtom predicted hour. Its a nice round about number though, I hate being late anyway...

 

[northdakotaweatherman]

I tried loading the expanded poi data base on my new 730 and it didn't work properly. Maybe I did something wrong. However, before I sold my 720-with older firmware--the large data base worked well. it was a HUGE database. It absolutely blew me away. If it wasn't for the unit being flaky in other areas...and having someone who didn't care about it because it was a good deal, I sold it. but with the large poi, i really liked it. I don't know the rules about giving out personal information, but if there is a way we can e-mail each other I can probably put the files on a cd and send it to you if you can't find it anywhere else.
BTW...if offering to load this is illegal on this site I apologize. I am not trying to do that.

 

[pianoCM]

IQroutes is sourced by users who enable the "submit anonymous data" setting in their tomtom. You're getting the disclaimer message because not enough north dakotans have purchased tomtoms (and turned on that setting) and driven your roads, so tomtom doesn't have any input data.

If you (and others in your neighborhood) turn on the submission feature, and connect to HOME often, Tomtom will get more data about your neighborhood. But the data resides statically on the map, so you'll need to purchase a new map or map subscription to get newer IQ data. IQroutes is only 9 months old, and is improving dramatically with each quarterly map release.

Correct me if I'm wrong but your explaination seems to be fitted for IQ Route version 2 (IQ Rv2), not for IQ Route itselft (first version) which based on the road info data and average driving speed.

 

[dhn]

IQ (original) took day of the week into consideration. IQ2 takes the time of day into consideration as well.

 

[gatorguy]

Correct. IQ originally offered either Monday thru Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday (3 data sets in other words). IRQ2 broken down into 5 minute increments based on a specific day of the week. Seems I read that TomTom claimed 100% coverage in a press release, but obviously it's not available for lightly traveled roads and highways. I think I had seen a post or two that noted some other Southwest state also was missing much of the IQR data. Probably places in the Pacific Northwest that aren't covered either.

 

[mvl]

Correct me if I'm wrong but your explaination seems to be fitted for IQ Route version 2 (IQ Rv2), not for IQ Route itselft (first version) which based on the road info data and average driving speed.

Yes. IQ2 was available on map 815 with navcore 8.2 or later. I believe every IQroutes-capable device has been upgraded to IQ2 assuming map 815 or later was purchased.

 

[joephu]

Do you think TT is working to roll out IQ3? This would be where it takes into account the time of the year?

I noticed that when you go to Planning a route and specify a future timeframe, it asks the time and month and day. I guess this would be a natural progression since traveling on a holidays weekend would be much different than a "normal" weekend.

 

[mvl]

I've been intently following this thread. I'm also interested in downloading the complete POI listing for my TT720. I tried to find the post that MVL mentions in his last post of this thread but I was unable to find it. I know that this is not a POI subject thread but I hope that someone can point me to the post he mentions on installing the complete POI listing. Thanks.

See here for the POI. Per the post, it requires map 815 or later to be compatible.

Do you think TT is working to roll out IQ3? This would be where it takes into account the time of the year?

I noticed that when you go to Planning a route and specify a future timeframe, it asks the time and month and day. I guess this would be a natural progression since traveling on a holidays weekend would be much different than a "normal" weekend.

It would be nice. Boston has significantly less traffic when there are school vacations.

 

[camtom]

720 go ETA

ETA is out at double EG 300 miles at 70 mph eta is 12.3 hours nothing will fix this . The rest of the devise works very well. Tom Tom will not fix this and will fill you with gooble gook. You need accurate ETA in Canada get a NUMI.
Sorry thats life.

 

[dhn]

What you are saying is not correct.

With models that have IQ routing and Canadian maps of 845 or 850, there have been significant improvements in data for Canadian roads including much better historical data imbeeded in the maps.

Yes, there isn't as much feedback related to smaller roads off the beaten track, but for most roads in cities and towns in your province, the IQ routing data and, therefore, the ETA is quite precise.

Just to verify..............

Give me a start point and an end point of locations in MB where you are experiencing the issue and I'll test it out on units I have here.