topic Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range UK & EU - Unacceptable in LIVE Services, HD Traffic and other Services

HD Traffic Reduced Range UK & EU - Unacceptable

Mick-TT950 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 16:06:22 GMT

Dear TomTom

The situation concerning reduced HD traffic range is unacceptable after so long a period and with a current thread becoming a free for all on all manner of traffic issues, I have started a new thread to concentrate on the issues of the reduced ranges.

TomTom, have been reticent to provide any concrete information concerning problems or causes of the incident. If indeed the reason was ‘unprecedented number of incidents due to bad weather caused reduction in HD Traffic range’, why do we continue to have such a reduced service, winter has been long gone.

Your actions have alienated many longstanding customers and TomTom supportres, many being owners of multiple devices and purchasing the lastest version when they are launched.

Like them I feel mightily aggrieved having paid for a ‘Premium HD Traffic Service’, yet for the past 10 months, TomTom have only managed to provide a ‘reduced temporary fix service' of 75km/120km, far less than the 160Km range many enjoyed for years and was extremely happy with (and nothing like that claimed ‘traffic information available for your route’).

I appreciate TomTom have endeavoured to resolve issues over the summer months, resulting from the winter weather when TomTom decided without warning, to reduce the HD Traffic service.

It is incredulous TomTom have failed during the summer months to identify the problem and come up with an effective solution.

Yet during this time, TomTom have continued to accept paid subscriptions from customers without informing them they will not be getting a ‘Full’ service.

TomTom also continues to send emails encouraging customers with subscriptions about to expire to pay up for a reduced service.

I have received such emails for other Live devices I have registered with subscriptions about to expire. What is in poor taste is how I am told about how HD Traffic Services will provide me with ‘the most up-to-date traffic information available for your route’.

As you can only provide a limited horizon and reduced traffic limit making the Live devices virtually useless for any journey over 40 minutes/75 miles, I suggest you advise your marketing department to revise its advertisements and be TRUTHFUL.

That time of year is fast approaching when the weather will be turning colder and the inevitable wintery conditions and snow fall, the very conditions that caused the drastic reduction in HD Traffic Services in the first place.

So, can please advise:

The reasons we are still waiting

When can we expect service to resume at 160Km

Why we cannot receive the advertised ‘most up-to-date traffic information available for your route’

What compensation can we expect (1 year added to our HD subscription)

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

mj2012 — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:13:18 GMT

On 5th October, @TomTom tweeted "Happy to announce that we've increased our HD Traffic bounding box to 160km for all LIVE devices...". I don't seem to be able to find the one where it says it was reduced again. The fact that this tweet makes out that this is a nice increase and not just restoration of the normal service (and probably not to what it was a year or so ago either) is rather galling. That there is no "unfortunately we've reduced it again" shows the contempt TomTom have for their customers over this issue.

Please TomTom, tell us what the issue is (why does it happen - what aspect of the system is not coping), and when we might expect a fix. Cut the marketing terms and be honest please.

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

mj2012 — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:32:05 GMT

Maybe I should take it back. Today I see a tweet that says that the new iPhone app is out, and they apologise to HD Traffic subscribers on the iPhone, for the unavailable service for the last week. As compensation they are extending subscriptions for 30 days.

Now, how about similar compensation for the PND subscribers, and perhaps restoration to what it should be too.

Does anyone know what the box range is on the iPhone version?

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

mvl — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:23:35 GMT

I think Tomtom's been clearly communicating in the other thread that the increased range has caused a number of problems, and they are trying to find a way to get everything resolved.

- HD traffic is a highly proprietary system, so I doubt you'd ever get a how/why out of them.

- Their "when" is pretty clear, they said they are working as fast as possible. I do a lot of troubleshooting in my day job, and many times if you knew exactly how to fix something you'd have fixed it already. If you're still figuring things out, you really can't provide a target resolution date.

I for one am glad that they're being careful here. When the range went to 160km for a few weeks recently, we had all sorts of outages, delayed info, etc. Things improved immediately when the range dropped. Since the traffic patterns in my area don't need a range above 120km, I prefer a 120km reliable system over a 160km unreliable system any day. (I know those in the UK would disagree)

My guess is that it's purely a capacity planning issue. 160km is twice the land area as 120km, so that's twice the infrastructure, twice the bandwidth, etc. And it appears that Tomtom hasn't invested in capacity to handle the proper load, so they cut the load in half. The worst thing is that these investments take time and lots of money, and for a company whose sales are plummeting (often due to lack of investment in capacity/quality), they're at risk of falling in a downward spiral here.

I truly hope Tomtom digs themselves out of this one in time. HD traffic is by far the best system I've seen anywhere in the world, saving me countless hours every week. It would be a sad day if issues like this drive the company and the HD traffic system into the ground.

HD Traffic Reduced Range UK & EUROPE - Unacceptable

Mick-TT950 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 15:49:30 GMT

mvl wrote:
I think Tomtom's been clearly communicating in the other thread that the increased range has caused a number of problems, and they are trying to find a way to get everything resolved.

- HD traffic is a highly proprietary system, so I doubt you'd ever get a how/why out of them.

- Their "when" is pretty clear, they said they are working as fast as possible. I do a lot of troubleshooting in my day job, and many times if you knew exactly how to fix something you'd have fixed it already. If you're still figuring things out, you really can't provide a target resolution date.

I for one am glad that they're being careful here. When the range went to 160km for a few weeks recently, we had all sorts of outages, delayed info, etc. Things improved immediately when the range dropped. Since the traffic patterns in my area don't need a range above 120km, I prefer a 120km reliable system over a 160km unreliable system any day. (I know those in the UK would disagree)

My guess is that it's purely a capacity planning issue. 160km is twice the land area as 120km, so that's twice the infrastructure, twice the bandwidth, etc. And it appears that Tomtom hasn't invested in capacity to handle the proper load, so they cut the load in half. The worst thing is that these investments take time and lots of money, and for a company whose sales are plummeting (often due to lack of investment in capacity/quality), they're at risk of falling in a downward spiral here.

I truly hope Tomtom digs themselves out of this one in time. HD traffic is by far the best system I've seen anywhere in the world, saving me countless hours every week. It would be a sad day if issues like this drive the company and the HD traffic system into the ground.

The original range was 160km prior to last winter over here and was VERY RELIABLE.

TomTom reduced that range due to the ‘weather causing incidents’.

They failed to increase the range when weather conditions improved

TomTom have had over 10 months to resolve this issue, which is of their own making, so it is fair to state they do not appear to be working as fast as possible.

As the US has never had the pleasure of a 160km range, it hardly surprising you are happy with your service, but we have paid for this service.

Should TomTom reduce the US traffic range to 75km, I trust you will be happy to accept this without complaint..

If it is a capacity issue, why can we download 160km range, only for our PND’s to discard anything over 120km.

However, I do agree with you comment regarding lack of investment,.

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

philce — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:23:17 GMT

Im sorry guys but can the non UK posters please not post their experiences and opinions in this thread, the other thread was filled with opinions and arguments which, with all due respect, are irrelevant to the purpose of the thread.

Nothing personal to anybody and please don't take it as such.

As other posters have already stated this has been going on for over 10 Months now, with no resolution in sight.

My day job involves faultfinding in high pressure time critical situations, if we let something this important to our product line be degraded for this long we wouldn't be in a job. Put it this way, we screw up, you dont get your morning paper!

However if we didn't actually publically admit this fault and continue to actively advertise the original product with the original specifications......

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

j_roger_new — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:51:40 GMT

I agree the limit is currently unacceptable in a UK scenario but a compromise would solve most of the issues which arise because it doesn't calculate the alternative routes when in the early part of the process.

If I have read both threads correctly it downloads data and then throws it away on a distance basis whether it is on your route corridor or not. The problem therefore is fundamental to the logic of the device's programming.

What I expect (thought I had paid for) is in this order - switch on, select route, device downloads ALL traffic data irrespective of journey length, then calculates best route.

So if we have a capacity issue on the data it is because it doesn't calculate a route corridor and because the throw-way stage is badly programmed in the device logic.

Example - If I set a route from here (Dorset) to say Cambridge it is 194 miles all in an easterly direction but within the distance horizon (whatever distance it is set) my device is presumably still holding all the totally irrelevant data for West Dorset, Devon and Somerset and possibly even part of Cornwall, irrelevant because I have now set a route in the opposite direction.

I've just done that as a test and what it totally ignores currently, due to distance away, is the M3 & M25 congestion and it is routing me right into the worst section some of which I could avoid if this was a real run by detouring towards Blandford & Salisbury very early on then picking up the A34 & then the M4 east! I shouldn't have had to work that out from manually checking the HD Traffic screens on-line when the device is on and I've bought Traffic Live to do it for me..

Surely a compromise is needed that ALL national data is downloaded when you set/change a destination, that is held for as long as it takes the device to set the route, and only then does the delete trigger kick in to reduce the capacity BUT after the best TOTAL route length has already been set.

The problem has been mentioned here umpteen times, in a UK scenario you are needing to pick routes very early on to avoid delays that are over 160K away when you set off. This is a geography based system that ignores geography by lacking any spatial context data filters based on the selected route only, apparently, a circular filter based on your current position.

Re: HD Traffic in UK - Reduced Range Unacceptable

Carminat — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:47:03 GMT

Mick-TT950 wrote:
The original range was 160km prior to last winter over here and was VERY RELIABLE.

TomTom reduced that range due to the ‘weather causing incidents’.

They failed to increase the range when weather conditions improved

TomTom have had over 10 months to resolve this issue, which is of their own making, so it is fair to state they do not appear to be working as fast as possible.

If it is a capacity issue, why can we download 160km range, only for our PND’s to discard anything over 120km.

I'm not convinced it was originally as little as 160km - the trouble is that it worked perfectly back then, so none of us took note of how far it covered. It's only since the service was reduced to "useless" that we've taken any notice. Yesterday morning my GO550 LIve downloaded incidents as far away as 175 miles (200km) before dropping them. Maybe we can all test regularly to see who can download the furthest incident?

Re: HD Traffic In UK, Reduced Range Unacceptable

Carminat — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:46:12 GMT

mvl wrote:
- Their "when" is pretty clear, they said they are working as fast as possible. I do a lot of troubleshooting in my day job, and many times if you knew exactly how to fix something you'd have fixed it already. If you're still figuring things out, you really can't provide a target resolution date.

Until 30th November 2010, for more than a year, HD Traffic worked perfectly and we were as happy as pigs in muck. It was a fantastic, flagship feature and we couldn't buy it fast enough.

On 3rd December 2010, we had snow up to our eyballs and HD Traffic fell over.

It is, no doubt, slightly unfair of me to ask, but if in your day job you still had not sorted this problem out 10 months later, if you really had no idea how to stop it falling over, if your only solution was to reduce the service by at least 50%, would you really still be in your day job? Rhetorical question if I employed you.:smileywink:

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

Kex — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:07:19 GMT

Removed, following a polite request from andyvee.

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

mvl — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 04:59:07 GMT

Carminat wrote:
mvl wrote:
- Their "when" is pretty clear, they said they are working as fast as possible. I do a lot of troubleshooting in my day job, and many times if you knew exactly how to fix something you'd have fixed it already. If you're still figuring things out, you really can't provide a target resolution date.

Until 30th November 2010, for more than a year, HD Traffic worked perfectly and we were as happy as pigs in muck. It was a fantastic, flagship feature and we couldn't buy it fast enough.

On 3rd December 2010, we had snow up to our eyballs and HD Traffic fell over.

It is, no doubt, slightly unfair of me to ask, but if in your day job you still had not sorted this problem out 10 months later, if you really had no idea how to stop it falling over, if your only solution was to reduce the service by at least 50%, would you really still be in your day job? Rhetorical question if I employed you.:smileywink:

If it's capacity as I expect, here's how I'd guess things went down at Tomtom:

November 30, 2010 - UH OH, we sold too many LIVE devices that we're overloading the system. HD team asks for more infrastructure funding, senior management says sorry no money in budget go make it work with existing system, HD team decides to reduce the range on app 10.x server only. No one complains because app 10.x has the horizon in the client, and anyone in UK who cared about the horizon had already returned their GO1000 and bought a GO950. Tomtom thinks "problem solved" and onto the next fire.

May 2011, Tomtom launches HDT 5.0, suddenly the detail send out to the devices increases substantially, now Tomtom's overloading the 9.x server. Leadership says, try the horizon reduction to save cash, no one complained before. Tomtom reduces it in June 2011, and assumes "problem solved".

July 2011 onwards - problems start to pop up, just in UK. TT leadership is surprised: "No one cared about horizon before with November reduction, why is this campaign happening on Facebook and TT discussions??". Finally leadership see's it's real and authorizes funding to restore the range.

My guess: It takes a couple months to source/implement necessary capacity, where they "think" it's needed, then they go LIVE in September, but something else breaks. Since November 2010 there are so many new customers and so much more detailed data, that unknown "other set of bottlenecks" is causing problems. Maybe Vodafone can't spew out all the new data fast enough with the limited GPRS hardware. I think now they're just trying to figure out how to get around a new unforseen bottleneck, and it's more than just funding...

Re: HD Traffic in UK - Reduced Range Unacceptable

Carminat — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:52:27 GMT

mvl wrote:
Carminat wrote:
mvl wrote:
- Their "when" is pretty clear, they said they are working as fast as possible. I do a lot of troubleshooting in my day job, and many times if you knew exactly how to fix something you'd have fixed it already. If you're still figuring things out, you really can't provide a target resolution date.

Until 30th November 2010, for more than a year, HD Traffic worked perfectly and we were as happy as pigs in muck. It was a fantastic, flagship feature and we couldn't buy it fast enough.

On 3rd December 2010, we had snow up to our eyballs and HD Traffic fell over.

It is, no doubt, slightly unfair of me to ask, but if in your day job you still had not sorted this problem out 10 months later, if you really had no idea how to stop it falling over, if your only solution was to reduce the service by at least 50%, would you really still be in your day job? Rhetorical question if I employed you.:smileywink:

If it's capacity as I expect, here's how I'd guess things went down at Tomtom:

You guessed wrong. We saw the reduced range back in February. We tried the usual action of contacting TT support, only to get the usual autoresponse emails of Reset, Reboot, Reformat, Reload, some even did the Return for Repair.

All to no avail, until eventually individuals were making enough noises about it to realise that it wasn't our individual devices, it was TomTom who had done something. That's when we went along the bad publicity route and TomTom finally acknowledged it. Then again, they tried the platitudes of how they are working on it.

The fact remains that they sold us an excellent product, then suddenly withdrew it whilst still keeping our money. It worked perfectly at the end of November 2010, it fell over a couple of days later. The problem should be easy enough to find, they're not hunting for a needle in a haystack. If it's capacity, the simple answer is to increase the capacity. Either that, or withdraw HD Traffic instead of expanding it (this month's newsletter). They are still marketing it as though it is a terrific product!

Re: HD Traffic in UK - Reduced Range Unacceptable

Carminat — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:16:47 GMT

Deleted

Carminat.

Re: HD Traffic in UK - Reduced Range Unacceptable

philce — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:55:57 GMT

This thread is rapidly going the way of the other 2, with no input from TomTom at all.

Perhaps we should all start to post on public forums (facebook/twitter) so more people can see.

Anyone got any media contacts that might be interested in running a story?

We should all lodge official complaints to TomTom HQ too.

Make as much noise as possible. They will happily let us rant and rave for as long as we want on this closed forum. Nothing will be done any time soon.

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

Mick-TT950 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:05:13 GMT

MVL,

Thank you for your contribution, your insight in the the problem here in UK and Europe along with the workings of TomTom, they are most informative.

Allow me to point out that prior March, and realisation that customers were becoming wise to the problem they were having, TomTom CS stated the HD services and Traffic issues, were the fault of the device, and insisted on reboots, full factory resets, or return and replacement of units.

That out of the way, perhaps you can enlighten us re following:

Has the US ever experienced any reduction in HD Traffic Serviceslike that suffered in UK and Europe?

Are US contributors seeing the forum through rose tinted glasses and so blind to fact this forum is littered with posts and threads stating concerns about poor HD Traffic Services, lack of traffic, server errors relating to traffic going back to March (farthest we can go back on this forum) ?

Do the US contributors deny 10 months is too long to correct failure to meet a paid for service?

Do the US contributors deny that continuing to promote HD Traffic with phrases live those below is not misrepresenting the service people pay for:

as most up-to-date traffic information available for your route
accident or other delay is found on your route, TomTom alerts you and can re-route you to an alternative, faster route.

Do US contributors accept that TomTom have received a significant income from sales and subscriptions due to false advertising but fail to deliver througout this incredulous period?

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

philce — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:26:32 GMT

If this was happening in the US there would be litigation by now.

Mick-TT950 wrote:
MVL,

Thank you for your contribution, your insight in the the problem here in UK and Europe along with the workings of TomTom, they are most informative.

Allow me to point out that prior March, and realisation that customers were becoming wise to the problem they were having, TomTom CS stated the HD services and Traffic issues, were the fault of the device, and insisted on reboots, full factory resets, or return and replacement of units.

That out of the way, perhaps you can enlighten us re following:

Has the US ever experienced any reduction in HD Traffic Serviceslike that suffered in UK and Europe?

Are US contributors seeing the forum through rose tinted glasses and so blind to fact this forum is littered with posts and threads stating concerns about poor HD Traffic Services, lack of traffic, server errors relating to traffic going back to March (farthest we can go back on this forum) ?

Do the US contributors deny 10 months is too long to correct failure to meet a paid for service?

Do the US contributors deny that continuing to promote HD Traffic with phrases live those below is not misrepresenting the service people pay for:
as most up-to-date traffic information available for your route
accident or other delay is found on your route, TomTom alerts you and can re-route you to an alternative, faster route.

Do US contributors accept that TomTom have received a significant income from sales and subscriptions due to false advertising but fail to deliver througout this incredulous period?

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

mvl — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:46:26 GMT

This is a discussion forum, I doubt you'll ever elicit a response out of Tomtom beyond what they've already said, until they have any progress to share. Re-posting "I'm angry" / "this is unacceptable" / "we demand a response" isn't going to get any info any quicker from them. Maybe try other vehicles of complaning (news media / litigation) if you feel like there's a dead end here.

We had a similar issue in the USA in 2008, PLUS traffic disappeared on us, with no explanation, for 3 months. User forums had complaints, but we had a member who complained to the Massachusetts Division of Consumer Affairs, who could have mandated an expensive recall to pull all Tomtom's off store shelves until "PLUS traffic" was removed from the boxes, and funny that within 48 hours of the complaint, PLUS traffic magically was fixed.

In any case, TT's track record of unreliability is well known in the USA. That's the main reason Garmin far outsells Tomtom in the USA, despite Garmin having laughably poor routing and ETA. (I have friends who say "I really like that restaurant, but it's two hours away and not worth the drive". And I smile knowing that two-hours is Garmin-directions, Tomtom routinely gets me there in 45 minutes.) Those who chose Tomtom do so clearly weighing the benefits vs costs.

The problem in the UK is that HD traffic is so good that it's become relied upon. And when it doesn't work, there's no second place vendor who can even remotely fill in the gap. Anyone who buids a business that relies on HD Traffic should have done their research and know the system has frequent outages. If a professsional driver didn't have permanent backup RDS TMC, that'sjust bad vendor due diligence on the part of driver.

If I were in the UK, I'd realize that Tomtom gets it: a large portion of UK users are unhappy. It's up to the company to do their own cost/benefit regarding a fix. Further complaining here is just fodder for the search engines, but unless they're accompanied with new useful suggestions on how to fix the problem, everything else is mostly non-productive.

If I were in the UK, I'd further get a backup long range system (eg: RDS-TMC/Garmin/etc) for the initial route decisions, and just use the Tomtom system for shorter range traffic avoidance. I'd consider whether what I'm getting from Tomtom is still worth my money, and choose whether to still buy Tomtom systems/subscriptions in the future. I'd weigh the cost/benefit of any legal action for prior services that I didn't feel were delivered.

I'm in the US, even vanilla IQroutes without any traffic feed here gives better routing than the second place option. Nothing else comes close. So I'm not switching companies. My choice is to go with Tomtom, and to develop good contacts with Tomtom to be most effective in getting them to improve and fix their issues. I just don't see any competitor closing the gap anytime soon.

Re: HD Traffic Reduced Range - Unacceptable

Mick-TT950 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:56:22 GMT

There we have it folks, a view that UK and Europeans are flogging a dead horse, as complaining most vociferously will be ignored by TomTom.

I do hope that even more will complain and in any way they consider appropriate as then the numbers who are disatisfied will be noted even if not accted upon.

You may consider such methods fodder for the search engines, but those who Google will pause to consider their reasons to purchase when checking marketing hype against actuality experienced.

As you have no doubt read the posts in depth by UK and European posters, you already know many have multiple units, have been long-term owners and supporters of TomTom since their first PND appeared on the shelves and will, without hesitation buy the latest device when it becomes available.

Professional drivers have also commented how their aged RDS-TMC PND’s are outperforming their shiny new out of the box PND’s when it comes to planning their route for anything other than short distances. In addition, if I recall correctly, it was professional drivers who were able to corroborate it was a TomTom issue, as they had more than one device so could compare.

You will also be aware then, that many have stated that RDS-TMC is the only option for journeys of any distance as it outperforms HD Traffic alerting you of jams beyond the horizon set by TomTom.

Why do you think we are being strident in our opinions, because we want to be, or because having paid for a service severely reduced?

Re: HD Traffic in UK - Reduced Range Unacceptable

Carminat — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:43:41 GMT

philce wrote:
This thread is rapidly going the way of the other 2, with no input from TomTom at all.

Perhaps we should all start to post on public forums (facebook/twitter) so more people can see.

Well, this Facebook page is outside TomTom's control...

http://www.facebook.com/groups/186622728063452/

And another action is to give kudos to posts which highlight the problem, then they will show up in the kudos bar on the TomTom website.

MICK (and philce and others) - PLEASE GO BACK AND AMEND ALL YOUR POSTS - EDIT THE TITLE EACH TIME to read

"HD Traffic in UK - Reduced Range Unacceptable", then, hopefully it will show as an accurate title.

HD Traffic Reduced Range UK & EUROPE - Unacceptable

Mick-TT950 — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:29:55 GMT

Titled now changed to focus the thread to geographical areas