Traffic for Vancouver, B.C.

From the horse's mouth.

Total Traffic Network launched RDS-TMC traffic in Vancouver on September 1, 2008. The service is available Monday-Friday 5 A.M to 7 P.M and covers the major highways in the Vancouver area.

We are ecstatic as well to have the opportunity to provide the traffic service in Vancouver.

We appreciate your business,

Alex Fife

Total Traffic Network.

That's great, but strange that they have no indication of Vancouver coverage on their website. I usually run my unit on battery, because there was no coverage and would not have noticed but for trolling these forums.

That was my intention to notify people out there that this service is now available, particularly people here in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley areas. Even the Garmin website doesn't show Vancouver having FM traffic coverage.

The email mentions that it covers the major highways but I have checked the service from time to time and it has shown incidences on secondary arteries, like city streets (e.g. traffic lights out on Main and Fraser Streets in Vancouver, 10th Ave. blocked between...due to accident in Burnaby). Don't know how well this service works in places like Abbotsford; it seems to show border delays at the Huntingdon Crossing daily and the one time I was out that way it was on a Sunday afternoon which was outside of coverage times.

Anyways there maybe people out there that drive more extensively than myself and have the free FM Traffic Service that may find this service very useful. You may want to take the GTM receiver out of mothballs and try it out here in Greater Vancouver. Please note that you do not have to plug the receiver into the cig. outlet of your car to have it work, the nuvi will actually power it up when it's turned on.

I've also discovered that neither TTN nor Garmin are updating their coverage maps. TTN released a press statement on August 18 describing the addition of 15 markets. NONE of those markets are included in the coverage maps as of yesterday!!

Here are the additional markets: Binghamton, NY; Charleston, SC; El Paso, TX; Grand Rapids, MI; Honolulu, HI; Melbourne, FL; Mobile, AL; Modesto, CA; Oklahoma City, OK; Panama City, FL; Pensacola, FL; Spokane, WA; Stockton, CA; Tallahassee, FL; and Tuscaloosa, AL

Thanks GadgetGuy, seems like we're the ones that have to get the word out about all of the new coverage areas.

There was also a firmware update for the traffic receiver last week as well:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=1445

RonBall9, thanks for the heads up for the traffic receiver update. Will update my unit later on.

Out of curiousity do you know if it gives coverage of the Knight Street bridge? It seems to capture all the other bridges but did not "light up" the Knight Street despite the heavier traffic this morning.

Apologies for the lateness of this reply, I haven't checked on this post in over a week. It does give consistent reports on the Knight Street bridge during the afternoons, both north and southbound traffic (slow due to accumulating traffic, accident, etc.) Since I do not commute over the bridge in the mornings I cannot vouch for the reliability of the service during those times; it does seem odd that it did not "light up" when you were experiencing heavy traffic there. All I can tell you is that the traffic service certainly does cover the Knight St. bridge.

Anyone else updated their traffic receiver firmware and also had a paid subscription to TTN? Anything change on yours, my TTN subscription is still expiring this year.

Interesting Post. I noticed that my C550 TTN subscription came alive unexpectedly around the beginning of September 2008. It expired as per the unit display warnings November 16. It displayed traffic congestion on my route to work along hiway 99 & oak street to Granville & Broadway. Usually I was already inching along in the traffic when the unit would advise me of the congestion. I updated the firmware for the GPS & the traffic receiver last night, but have not been able to decipher from either TTN or Garmin's site how to re-activate the traffic receiver. This morning it was still inactive. I was interested to see the note re how to access the hidden displays and did chk them this am. The YVR signal was listed.

Hi Rattlers96,

You may want to confirm this procedure with Garmin since I re-activated my sub back in the beginning of July/08 and this may not be the procedure now. I see that Vancouver is still not registering on either Clear Channel's or Garmin's websites as having Traffic Services.....really strange. This method worked for me, click on this link: https://shop.garmin.com/fmtraffic/select_service_plan.asp?L=... and follow the steps to the end. That worked for me but I'm wondering if Garmin Cust. Support may have another way to re-activate your subscription. Good Luck with that!

Thanks Peter, I shall check it out when I get home this evening.
Interesting event on the way home last night the Traffic advisory was once again operational & indicated traffic events on my trip home (approx 5:30 pm).
Sadly, this morning it was once again dormant all the way into work.
Perhaps it has moved into a sporadic service model to try and entice me back into the fold.

You're Welcome Rattlers96! I'm fairly sure that the method I've described will work to get your new traffic sub. I don't do a morning or afternoon commute but I've seen the service go "dormant" the odd time. By dormant I mean it seemed like the antenna was having problems getting a proper fm traffic signal from the provider(s) over a lengthy period of time. Perhaps that was what you were experiencing during your morning commute. I've read from another forum that this "loss of service" does happen from time to time even in other cities like Toronto. Hopefully the trend will be towards improved consistent service rather than sporadic, inconsistent service for our area.