I’m looking to upgrade my GPS and am curious as to how good the traffic feature is on the Garmin 265T, for example. Is it updated quickly? I assume it works with the radio somehow.
It is radio-based - they use a channel in the regular FM radio band. But first of all, you need to be in an area with NAVTEQ real-time traffic info, or the feature is not useful. Incidents are updated pretty quickly.
There’s a listing and maps at http://www.navteq.com/rdstraffic/ - Note that even if an area has coverage, not all roads will have the same level of coverage, but I’d assume they’d only increase the levels and increase the number of roads over time.
I used the Garmin version on my nuvi for the first year, because it was a free trial. I am in the D.C. area and commute into the city frequently, as well as to another location.
My experience was that the technology worked great but the information was never up to date. I would frequently encounter traffic tie-ups that were not visible on the device, and also encounter clear sailing when it warned me of a problem. It did seem fairly accurate for the heavy traffic that would predictably occur on the same roads every rush hour, but that’s not too helpful.
If it had worked more reliably I would have stuck with it, because the traffic feature is intergrated into the routing strategy, so that it take into account traffic jams when determining the fastest route.
I have a Nuvi 755 with the traffic and find it’s accuracy to be about 50-50. Sometimes a delay is shown and when I arrive it’s nothing. Other times nothing is indicated and there’s a delay. But it’s free! :smack:
Sounds like I shouldn’t get too excited. I live north of Baltimore off 95 and I have a couple options on the way in, I guess I’ll stick to the Morning Zoo on the radio for the traffic updates.
Thanks!
I live in the Bay Area, and before I leave work I consult 511.org - a web site with traffic updates, a news radio site, and Google Maps with traffic on my Droid. They frequently contradict each other. It works fine for a major tie-up, but not so good for the average jam. I also listen to the news station, which is fine when a chopper visits the road I go home on. I don’t think I’d pay extra for any of it.
I have a T-Mobile G1 (Google) phone and, over the past four months, I have found Google Maps’ traffic overlay to be extraordinarily accurate in my hometown of Baltimore and in Southern California. I have a Mio Moov without traffic capability, which has many good qualities in comparison to the G1, not least of which is a much larger screen. But when I want to know what the traffic situation is, I use the G1.
I don’t know if there are any standalone GPS units with Google Maps capability, but if I decide to replace the Mio, that will be my top priority. If there aren’t any, I’ll stick with using my phone.