| NewVMan |
Last weekend had a chance to test the NavTraffic system in the New York metropolitan area and had high hopes for this system. I was traveling from New Jersey to Long Island for the holiday weekend, a trip I make very often.
The NavTraffic system was basically useless. It is difficult to read on the screen, unless you are already stuck in traffic, and was not even close to accurate. My SOTP estimate is that it is about 50% accurate, and did not identify many construction areas, including the lower level of the Verrazanno Bridge. The Nav system also does not use this information in calculating routes.
So this is at best a system that will show you that you are stuck in traffic when you are already there, gee that is almost as good as the weather system included in the Nav system, where you can look at the window to see if it is raining or not. |
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| SullyC5er |
| I live in a somewhat rural area and it notified me of a traffic jam 2 miles from my house...it must have beem the three cars stopped at the traffic light. :rolleyes: So far for me it has been useless. |
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| shootist |
I'll echo that opinion. In the metropolitan areas, it tells me that traffic is always slow, and there is no way around it. In the rural areas, it points to the metropolitan areas 50 miles away, and tells me all about the traffic I just left behind. And it will only do it at 1/2 mile resolution maximum.
I think I see an OnStar retention rate coming for NavTraffic. |
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| KINGSOL |
| Do you really need NavTraffic in New York? Just figure that there is traffic all of the time - especially crossing any of the bridges. I crossed the GWB twice a day for over twenty years and I am glad that I do not have to do it anymore. Now a traffic jam out here means we are doing 40MPH verses 75MPH. AND NO BRIDGES, TUNNELS, and especially TOLLS! |
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| SoCalDoc |
| So far is works okay for the Los Angeles area. I use it for nonrush hour driving to LA. It has alerted me to slow traffic where I try to reroute my driving. During rush hour, why bother? Its always bad during those hours in LA. |
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| Luke |
For the Seattle area it works ok and I did notice it routed me differently in 1 occasion (assuming this since the way back it routed me differently and it showed heavy traffic the original route).
That said I still wouldn't pay for it... Usually I know when and where the traffic conguestion is. |
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| alexaks |
| Same here. In NYC (tristate) area traffic updates are worthless. My trial period of NavTraffic just expired, and I would not spend a dime to sign up. |
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| Mia's Dad |
| In Atl it seems to work fairly well, although my complaint is that there is a spot on 285 (the perimeter loop) that always has a construction delay and they have not had construction there in over a year. Kind of a bug in the system I guess. I have not noticed the Navi changing the route due to the traffic or not. That is an interesting thought though, I will have to check that out. |
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| mindmachine |
I had Nav Traffic in my 05 Acura RL and it did a great job in the Chicago area, save me hours on many occasions. The rerouting was automatic if a problem existed and on many occasions it would alert me to problems when I was inbound from Indiana and heading the the North west up by O'Hare. It also worked for me quite nice when heading into Washington DC and it alerted me to a route I had programmed to Williamsburg VA. My route time started to increase doe to a problem on the south side of DC in Northern Virginia.
In my new MDX I can spot problems in Columbus OH from 50 miles away by zooming to the outer-belt and looking for any problems and it shows them and then you can zoom in to the tighter scale for the details.
I also had good results on a in Charleston SC.
I think part of it may be learning how to use it to maximum benefit.
I also believe however it is like any computer, if the data entry is sloppy data input by the locality then you get garbage out to us the users. |
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| stoke2 |
| I use it in LA all the time and it's great. I find it particularly useful. |
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| gotong |
It seems from the posts here that the NavTraffic is ok in LA.
I use it too in LA and so far it's great. It's dead on when showing green, yellow and red sections. It greatly helps in deciding which route to take. |
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| stumpie |
| It's saved my ass more than once in the SF East Bay area.....purchase justified, nuff said. |
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| choiski |
For me and a friend of mine, the XM traffic data seemed to be delayed too much in the New York metro area. He cancelled his after a few weeks of commuting. I'll just let mine run out its 90 day trial.
I'm not sure if the data suffers a latency lag as XM cycles through all of the info and transmits it, or if the source data is delayed, or both. I've compared it to my mobile phone with Google Maps that shows live traffic data, and I think the mobile phone gets more timely data. That's because I get it when I request it, not whenever it's transmitted out.
I think the up to the minute traffic data needs to be there within 30 seconds of getting in your car; that way you can decide which route to take. It doesn't help after 5 or 10 minutes, when you've already gotten on to the on ramp. |
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