TomTom GO Traffic Radius Issue
It's improved a lot over the time I've been using it, but there is one thing that irritates me about Traffic that didn't seem to be the case on the previous TomTom Sat Nav apps. (Okay, there are lots of irritants, but this is fresh in my mind and relevant right now).
- Live Traffic data only extends a certain fixed radius from your current location.

So I have a clear radius of how much traffic information I have, and then nothing.
I am sure the radius will follow me while I travel, but that's not the point.
What if one of the main UK motorways (such as M1 in this case) is blocked, and I should really head up the M5/M6 instead? I won't know until I am already committed to the M1 route, and then I would have to perform some convoluted route.
Surely the traffic data should extend to the entire length of your planned route during the planning stage?
Is there some way that I can make this happen? I really doubt there is, but I'll throw the question out there

Best Answer
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Lochfrass Posts: 14,507
SuperusersYou're right about that. Many other users have already asked to increase the radius.
But TomTom doesn't seem to want that.
1
Answers
Superusers
As an alternative, you can view the route on MyDrive https://mydrive.tomtom.com/en_gb/ or in the myDrive app. There you can see all the traffic
The MyDrive App is for Android or iOS available
Thanks for the suggestion, I've not used the MyDrive app before
However, that kind of rubs salt in the wound: the free MyDrive app shows all the traffic data for the entire journey, but the paid-subscription GO Navigation app doesn't
It does look like GO Navigation traffic is more detailed, but still frustrating.
To force GO Navigation to take a different route based on observed traffic in MyDrive, it looks like I would have to manually add waypoints to the journey to make GO Navigation mimic the route that MyDrive calculates, so I could then "send" the route to GO Navigation. All getting somewhat convoluted
Superusers
But TomTom doesn't seem to want that.
I did try to search the forums for a similar question, but failed to find it (perhaps I should have searched the previous Gen app).
I will add my voice to the chorus of people making the request
Superusers
But the search shows many entrys to "Traffic radius"
https://discussions.tomtom.com/en/search?Search=traffic+radius
A lot of reading material if you like
I should have searched further than the current forum
Just annoying it is still an issue in v2 app
Update: okay, I just read that the traffic radius is "1 hour" driving time from your current position, and that road closures beyond 1 hour are still shown. This is something positive, but I would still prefer to have all the data at hand when making the routing choice (even if the traffic may have cleared by the time I get there: I make these decisions myself already with the 1 hour radius of traffic).
Superusers
@Lewpy
Yes the Tomtom PND's also have a Traffic Horizon dynamically centred (Live) from your present location...
The Traffic Horizon (Bubble) travels along with you as you travel on your journey
As an example... I planned a route from Worcester UK to the Traffic Horizon (Manchester UK) the distance is 101 Miles journey time 2Hours 17 Mins
The Traffic Horizon (Bubble) travels along the route with you on your journey constantly assessing the traffic situation ahead as a moving target always for the NEXT 100 Miles of your journey
The Traffic info on the Live PND devices is updated every 2 Minutes....
Why worry
ATB YFM
Superuser
But... with my TomTom hat on, to increase the functionality to the entire route would surely necessitate downloading traffic information for the entire UK? If true, then can you imagine:
- The length of time it would take to download/update/process traffic data every five minutes
- The additional cost to TomTom for every device downloading maybe 10x the quantity of data currently sent
Neither of these issues are a concern if plotting via the web on MyDrive, which is why traffic conditions throughout the route is taken into account.My user annoyance is that I know the data is there but I can't use it because TomTom won't let me (apart from using the MyDrive app, which defeats the convenience of it all being in one place). I get the arguments of "well, the traffic will have changed by the time you get there", but that is not the point: my view is being controlled and I don't like it
I know this isn't going to go anywhere, but I can see a relatively simple compromise that would appease my concerns: TomTom apparently download road closures for the whole country (not personally verified), so perhaps they could extend that to include any incident that is more than 10 (or 15) minutes delay. This would cover major issues on motorways (*cough* M6 *cough*) that massively increase travel time, but don't actually cause a road closure.
I clearly have no knowledge of the size of the traffic dataset nor the percentage of traffic incidents that are over 10/15 minutes delay, but my instinct tells me it would be a relatively small percentage and therefore not a major loading.
I don't mind if it doesn't download this "farther afield important traffic" unless I plan a journey of over the 1 hour traffic radius cut-off. Therefore short journey takers don't load the traffic servers any more than normal.