Traffic management

[jaye944]

some advice guys'

currently: go620

so

1> How accurate/good (if that is the correct word) is the traffic thingy ! sorry, is it worth the extra money and what is involved, i.e. what parts do I need and I know I need to subscribe.

1a> how does it work, after I've planned a route please?

2> Is it ok for my 620 or is there a better newer solution I can buy from tomtom, i.e. new GPS with TM

I can give my old go to my wife and use the new one
I'm on a limited bugjet please

p.s. I love my go, no problems with it, old and dependable!


Thanks awfully

 

[dhn]

The rds-tmc combo car charger/antenna provides fm traffic. It is a lifetime subscription and reports only highway and some main road traffic. It is not as current nor accurate as Live traffic with the Go Live 1535 (only LIVE model in Canada) which reports on all streets every 2 minutes.

But the fm traffic is better than nothing. Fellow mod, Arno, uses one in his 930 so he can report on his experiences with it.

 

[jaye944]

thankxs dhn, thats what I kinda heard, didnt know it was lifetime, thats good, yeah not sure about buying another TT unless I had to,

 

[Arno]

My experience with a GO 1535 would not want to make me give up my GO 930 for which dhn kindly lent me his traffic combination cable.

I had several instances where Live traffic was of no benefit as I zig-zagged myself out of a major city mess.

The new models introduced just recently will most likely need as least a year of improvements before they will show what they should be theoretically capable to do.

I would hang in there with RDS-TMC for at least a year if you are otherwise satisfied.

 

[jaye944]

cool, thanks for the experience Arno, thats what I was kinda hoping, so will look into getting the lead and seeing costs for lead and subscription, thanks

 

[mvl]

The lifetime subscription comes free with the antenna purchase. Cheapest are probably on ebay, make sure it is the antenna model that is combined with the cigarette lighter adapter, other ones are not lifetime subscriptions.

 

[Alex.F]

Currently my GO 2535LIVE performs pretty well in terms of traffic avoidance in San Francisco bay area, I would say it is head & shoulders above RDC-TMC which I had before & which I occasionally fall back to when live fails.
It seems to be more accurate on the highway traffic (sometimes within 100 feet or so) then it is on city streets, it seems to be 2-3 minutes behind everywhere.
I also use Waze on my phone, it is crowd sourced & very accurate most times as far as the traffic is concerned. It depends on number of users at any given time, of course & there are usually 4000-7000 of them "on" during my commute hours.
I commute & use both for just over two hours every day & have done that for several years, so I "racked up" quite a few miles & hours using both.

 

[Alex.F]

Independent Study Confirms Accuracy of TomTom Traffic
ANN ARBOR, Michigan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--October 10, 2013--
An independent benchmarking study, published on Monday, into the accuracy of traffic jam information provided by after-market navigation systems in the U.S. has concluded that TomTom's iPhone Navigation App and GO 2535 Portable Navigation Device provide the most accurate real-time traffic data, when compared to a number of competing products.
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20131010-906189.html

 

[canderson]

Which of course, applies to any of the Live units, including the venerable GO740, the newer GO1535, etc. Good to see that the BIG improvement they made in Live traffic reporting at the end of last year is getting this kind of press.