TomTom GO Traffic Radius Issue

Lewpy
Lewpy Registered Users Posts: 5
Master Traveler
in TomTom GO Navigation app for iPhone
I have been using TomTom GO for a couple of years, after been moved off TomTom Western Europe app.
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 live in the South of England, and if I navigate a route to the North of England, my map looks like this [not sure it will embed or attach the image]
c6exnmw98iep.jpg

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

  • Lochfrass
    Lochfrass Posts: 18,035
     Superuser
    Answer ✓
    You're right about that. Many other users have already asked to increase the radius.
    But TomTom doesn't seem to want that.

Answers

  • Lochfrass
    Lochfrass Posts: 18,035
     Superuser
    Hi and welcome to the Forum.

    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
  • Lewpy
    Lewpy Registered Users Posts: 5
    Master Traveler
    Hi Lochfrass.
    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 :/
  • Lochfrass
    Lochfrass Posts: 18,035
     Superuser
    Answer ✓
    You're right about that. Many other users have already asked to increase the radius.
    But TomTom doesn't seem to want that.
  • Lewpy
    Lewpy Registered Users Posts: 5
    Master Traveler
    Lochfrass wrote: »
    You're right about that. Many other users have already asked to increase the radius.
    But TomTom doesn't seem to want that.
    Now that is interesting, and thank you for letting me know.
    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 :)
  • Lochfrass
    Lochfrass Posts: 18,035
     Superuser
    edited July 2019
    I mostly read and post in the german forumpart and only sometimes in the englisch part of this forum. So i know the wish mostly from the German, Austria or Switzer users.
    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 =)
  • Lewpy
    Lewpy Registered Users Posts: 5
    Master Traveler
    edited July 2019
    Lochfrass wrote: »
    A lot of reading material if you like =)
    Yes, the first post I read described exactly my complaint, but from a German user :)
    I should have searched further than the current forum :open_mouth:
    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).
  • dmulv
    dmulv Posts: 675
    Superuser
    I can see both sides to this. With my user hat on, if I'm calculating a long route of, say, 200 miles (which is plausible, even in Blighty), it's entirely possible that there's an incident on a motorway beyond the 100 mile horizon which would necessitate taking an entirely different route. Of course, the incident would eventually be picked up, however depending on the motorway used, it may not be possible to find an alternative route, or if one is found then there's limited options in saving time (vs. a different route at the beginning). And let's remember, some incidents can add several hours to a journey time, and in doing so they can cripple the surrounding roads - further reducing options.

    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:
    1. The length of time it would take to download/update/process traffic data every five minutes
    2. 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.
  • Lewpy
    Lewpy Registered Users Posts: 5
    Master Traveler
    @dmulv Yes, I am pretty much in the same two minds.
    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.

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