Traffic on Go 530

[wilsojer]

I've just bought a TomTom Go 530 and am wanting to get Traffic info as my daily commute is about an hour and a half on the M25 and M11. I gather that my two options are to but an RDS-TMC Traffic Recevier or to use my mobile phone and get traffic info via GPRS. Can anyone tell me which is the better of these two ? I gather from all my research to date that the GPRS option is superior, not least because the RDS-TMC receiver has been prone to all sorts of problems. Would all of you TT experts on here agreee with that ??

Also, I wanted to try out the traffic via GPRS option before having to shell out ?30 for a year's subscription, but TomTom customer services told me (rather rudely) that they don't do that. Does anyone know of any way that I could test this out to see if it is suitable for me, or is the only option to buy the subscription and hope for the best ??

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[mikealder]

Welcome to the forum, if you are commuting the M11/ M25 at anything like rush hour you don't need a traffic system to tell you the road has slow moving traffic on it!!!!

To be honest for the GPRS based service you need to know if your phone works with the TomTom server before paying any subscription, not all phones will work so set up the data connection via your phone and see if the weather service is available on the device, this doesn't need a subscription and proves whether your phone and network provider will work with the TomTom system.

Bear in mind you also incur data traffic charges, whilst these might be small its worth checking as some phone providers charge heavily for data connections, should you have inclusive data traffic within your tariff then don't worry about this issue.

GPRS offers full UK coverage of any traffic incident, RDS-TMC is regional data but you can typically see incidents up to two hours drive time away - more than adequate.

RDS-TMC can be patchy with some areas offering poor reception, also if you have a car with heat reflective glass (Athermic) forget RDS-TMC as the coating on the glass will effectivley kill the FM based signal resulting in no data.

No traffic system is much good in the UK, its handy from time to time but I tend to ignore it most of the time, reception issues are one thing, once you resolve reception the data isn't too good from time to time - Mike

 

[wilsojer]

Mike,

Thanks for your reply - very interesting and useful. I didn't know about the weather thing and that is a great way to test out the phone to see if it works or not.

I agree with your M25 comment, but the key for me is to try and be warned about a snarl-up before I get to it and am stuck without being able to get off the motorway. If I can get my TT to redirect me before getting stuck, I may drive further, but at least I'll be moving !

It sounds like I'm likely to get better reception and data via GPRS as long as the phone/pricing plan permit - do you agree ?

Thanks again for your help.

Jeremy

 

[mikealder]

The weather option is a great "free" way to make sure your data connection is working correctly, if you can receive weather then once you have a valid subscription you will receive Traffic. Having looked at your commute route and the transmitter locations for RDS you are quite a distance from any of the higher power aerials so reception will be troublesome.
As long as you have a data plan and your phone has the GPRS service enabled (not just Wap as Wap won't work with the TT Servers) - Even some Pay As You Go services in the UK can be made to work with the TT system, Orange and T-Mobile both work on PAYG, however if you have O2 PAYG it won't work. O2 on a monthly contract will work though!
I know of some users who use an old phone for the TomTom data connection with a PAYG card in it, the credit lasts for quite some time, do you have any old phones in a draw at home, it might be worth considering?

By the way I don't think those Specs cameras on the Northern section of the M25 near the M11 work too well, the other week the cruise control on my hire car went wrong (honest) and I went through part of that section at a much higher speed than I wanted to, seen/ heard nothing so hopefuly they are not working fully! - Mike

 

[wilsojer]

Thanks, Mike.

Strange thing - I've got an old Tesco PAYG phone which still had some credit on it. Now, I believe that Tesco runs on the O2 network and yet I tested out the weather and it pulled it back with no problem, so I'm hoping that it will work with the traffic as well. I'll let you know if it works.

I think I've even got an O2 PAYG sim kicking around somewhere, so I might give that a go as well - maybe they've changed their config ?

BTW - I go through those cameras on the M25 twice a day and I always have people rushing past me (must be a lot of cruise controls not working ), so I agree that I don't think they're particularly strict. I'm not willing to trust to that, though - with my luck, I'll be the one who gets the ticket and fine !

Thanks again for all your help.

Jeremy