IQroutes has competition

[mvl]

Magellan Maestro 4700 has been announced, and it contains "Predictive Traffic", a competitor to IQroutes.

Maestro Series

 

[dhn]

Surprised they beat Garmin to it..........

 

[doctormstein1]

new thread

just started a new thread comparing the 740 to the 4700. It also said it has live traffic and internet search for pois. if anyone has information please add to this thread

 

[mikealder]

Which map supplier is this unit using TA or NT as recently TeleAtlas did say they were going to make data such as this available to other users, a quick "tweak" to the application would soon offer the advantage, if this is NT maps with the equivalent to IQ data then it would be rather interesting - Mike

 

[mvl]

It's Navteq, see here.

While not attributing the feature to a vendor, you have to assume it is the first device released with Navteq Traffic Patterns, Navteq's answer to IQroutes.

 

[doctormstein1]

yes it is navteq. Though their iQ routes is not as thorough as tom tom. Tom tom has much more data on their routes.

 

[ezerhoden]

The part I found interesting is "Traffic Patterns is a dynamically updatable map attribute". I guess new map releases every three months is not a bad update schedule from TeleAtlas. I have no idea how often these updates on Navteq will be made available. But I would think that TeleAtlas could do this with the IQ routes info, make it available similar to a Quickfix or Map Corrections download by way of Home.

I think TeleAtlas has a jump on NavTeq in this arena with the updating road speed information from individual TomTom units. But if Garmin, etc start using a similar way of gathering road speed data they could easily catch up with how many Garmin units there are in cars in the US.

 

[gatorguy]

With the available Navteq-based reporting devices, particularly here in North America, from Garmin (yes, expect an announcement from them quite soon IMO), Magellan, Nokia gps-enabled phones, taxis and commercial/delivery vehicles, I can see a distinct possibility of Navteq Traffic Patterns being even more complete and accurate than TomTom's IQR within a year or less. TomTom/TeleAtlas needs to stay on their toes.

 

[mvl]

I have no idea how often these updates on Navteq will be made available.

Navteq says in the link that they will update every 6 months. I think dynamically updatable means it can be changed more frequently by driver experience (eg: like Navigon's MyRoutes) but Navteq won't update it that often. This info really shouldn't change much. I think semi-annual updates are sufficient once Navteq get's it's initial data density up to par.

The real question with the Navteq data-acquisition is how many devices send probe data back to Navteq. Nokia only appears to send data from users of Ovi Maps - and very few of the American crippled Nokias permit Ovi maps. We'll have to see if the Magellan 4700 phones home, and if any other upcoming Navteq-enabled devices do as well.

I agree with Gator that even with these limitations in North America, Navteq should catch up to IQroutes in a year, but I suspect Teleatlas to catch up to Navteq in North American road accuracy in a year also.

Tomtom will lose its IQrotues edge, and then we'll all be comparing devices on the next generation of features. LIVE/HD traffic has a huge advantage over competition right now, but I could see competitors closing the gap there also.

 

[pianoCM]

They compete, customers will get benefit.
Good for all of us.

 

[doctormstein1]

costs

the only thing that i do not like with live services is the cost. They need a yearly discounted rate and they need a life time discounted rate. Now Its hard to recommend the 740 live with tell your friends of the large extra costs and extra costs of the map service.

 

[mvl]

The Tomtom 740 is targeted to frequent/business travelers. The time it saves in wages and gas will more than pay for the $10/month.

Until someone else succeeds in copying IQroutes and LIVE traffic, they can price to perceived value. Once competition comes out, pricing will move down closer to cost.

For me, I'd pay for it because I'm a gadget geek. It's cool, and cheaper than 2 cups of coffee.

 

[dhn]

2 cups of coffee = $10 a month

mvl, you do have expensive tastes!

 

[doctormstein1]

For me i can't thnk as to how other gps units other then tomtom can catch up with tomtoms data that they were getting for such a long time. I personally think that tomtom will be more advanced then navteq users because of the quantitiy of information that tom tom has gathered over years. They might approach this level but in one year using nokias I would think that i is impossible not to mention HD traffic coming.

 

[maxe]

tomtomservices

is there a tomtom expert out there please help. i can get traffic weather but after one or two days i lose it. then when i up date on tomtom home it works again. it keeps doing this over and over.help does anybody know whats up with this.

 

[dhn]

Updating using Home forces a reset on the unit when you disconnect from the computer.

So, when you lose traffic, just do a reset on your unit and it should come back, you don't need Home involved.

 

[doctormstein1]

With the available Navteq-based reporting devices, particularly here in North America, from Garmin (yes, expect an announcement from them quite soon IMO), Magellan, Nokia gps-enabled phones, taxis and commercial/delivery vehicles, I can see a distinct possibility of Navteq Traffic Patterns being even more complete and accurate than TomTom's IQR within a year or less. TomTom/TeleAtlas needs to stay on their toes.

nokia has dismal sales in this country. Poor products and outragious high prices. in 2008 it had only 8% share of all cell phones in this country. I can't see how Nokia is going to help too much with their iq routes

 

[doctormstein1]

iq routes

Navteq says in the link that they will update every 6 months. I think dynamically updatable means it can be changed more frequently by driver experience (eg: like Navigon's MyRoutes) but Navteq won't update it that often. This info really shouldn't change much. I think semi-annual updates are sufficient once Navteq get's it's initial data density up to par.

The real question with the Navteq data-acquisition is how many devices send probe data back to Navteq. Nokia only appears to send data from users of Ovi Maps - and very few of the American crippled Nokias permit Ovi maps. We'll have to see if the Magellan 4700 phones home, and if any other upcoming Navteq-enabled devices do as well.

I agree with Gator that even with these limitations in North America, Navteq should catch up to IQroutes in a year, but I suspect Teleatlas to catch up to Navteq in North American road accuracy in a year also.

Tomtom will lose its IQrotues edge, and then we'll all be comparing devices on the next generation of features. LIVE/HD traffic has a huge advantage over competition right now, but I could see competitors closing the gap there also.

For me using Nokia phones to give information for IQ routes will be an extremely slow process. Nokia has only a 8% share of all the cell phones in this country, down from 15% 2 years ago. Their phones are antiquated, and not up to par as other manufactures. Plus they are selling their phones for a rediculous high price of over $400 to $600. compaired to under $200 of other phones in this country like apple. To get a giant profile of street sections in this country with GOOD data I think that realistically will take at least 2 years. BUT dont you think tom tom will be improving their network at this time like HD in this country. So just to say that their is a one year leeway I think is way to optomistic

 

[offthegrid]

Navteq also has the traffic.com data and they've been tracking historical traffic via fleet gps's now for a few years. Also when you say Nokia has an 8% market share here thats still millions of phones sold every year I would think. One thing to keep in mind is that Nokia dwarfs TomTom in size and resources and they appear to have some focus on gps, mapping, traffic and location services. They will be a formidable competitor but I agree right now TT has an edge.

When a Garmin owner hooks up to the web no historical traffic data is gleamed from it? I'm surprised actually, you'd think they'd sell it to Navteq if nothing else. What would happen if Nokia bought Garmin?

 

[gatorguy]

FWIW. Meant to post this yesterday and got sidetracked.

Seattle-based traffic provider INRIX is announcing today the availability of its historical traffic speed database for Europe. Designed for use in routing and travel time applications, encompasses accurate speed information for over 420,000 kilometers across roadway networks in Germany, France, the U.K., Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg.

“Expanded coverage for additional countries and roads across Western Europe will be available soon”, added INRIX.

“The scale of our crowd-sourced network of speed data from GPS-enabled commercial and consumer vehicles and devices, as well as our partnerships across Europe, is driving the availability of new INRIX traffic services such as our historical traffic speeds product,” said Hans-Hendrik Puvogel, general manager of INRIX Europe.

TomTom's IQR covers 15 million kilometers of roads in Europe, according to TomTom. Based simply on past press releases and claims, I might take that figure with a grain of salt, but in any case they currently have a significant lead. But here's something to consider. Basing historical travel speeds on only other TomTom devices is not as accurate as the data augmented by highway sensors, over-the-road vehicles, anonymous cell and other public sources, Inrix appears to have data sources that TomTom does not, so going forward Inrix historical traffic speeds might be more accurate. Whether it's anything significant might be debatable. Really, what matter is it if your computed route is 1 or 2 minutes different from the actual drive, or that a 2% faster route was available?