Traffic Avoidance on the Nuvi 760

Presumably, what it's saying, is that it's faster to sit it out in the traffic, than to try and divert around it. (Whether it is or not, is anybody's guess )

Also I gnerally do not have my nuvi guiding me around my local area and when I get the area that is supposed to be congested it rarely seems to be any more congested than I would expect. Ususally even if it is congested it is still the fastest way. This is in the Los Angeles area.

Over time the feeling I get from most that use this feature on a daily basis is that it will let them know of slowdowns, but unless the time gets to be 30 minutes or more it does not pay to route around.

This of course depends on your city and many other factors. Remember that side streets are not factored into the traffic data yet, and that there are others that are bailing off the interstate as well.

I use the MSN when in Kansas City. It works this way on my c580. If on a route - and the unit detects delayed traffic it will notify my of the time increase or a possible change. When in navigation mode it only showed incidents on the screen and color coded the interstates if traffic was slow.

Daniel

I'll echo what aophiuchus said. I'm also in SoCal.

I use MSN as well.

I rarely get any traffic info because it isn't available where I live.

However, I've received traffic alerts a few times when traveling in the Sacramento area and, each time, it notified me there was a traffic problem suggested an alternate route. Once it routed me to a frontage road which avoided a major accident scene on the main highway and a few times it notified me that, on that day, the direction I was traveling was closed xx number of miles ahead due to construction and routed me an alternate way to my destination.

Ok then, i never thought it that way. I'll sit it out next time and see what happens. In the case of really serious congestion like say a an accident or road closure, would anyone know if the Nuvi (and FM Traffic receiver) would automatically route me around that?

When I first got my 760 with the TTN traffic, I turned on the "Avoid traffic" option in the Avoidances menu and I did not like how it worked. It just automatically re-routed me without asking. If you leave the auto-avoid option off, you will see it recalculate a new route after tapping Avoid. If you have the auto-avoid option turned on in the Avoid menu, it has already calculated an avoidance route so tapping the Avoid option again would have no additional effect. And yes, it will most definitely route you around the bad spot. As with ALL the routing that the Nuvi does, you might not agree with it or feel it actually was the best route. But it really does work.

I'm really interested in this discussion - it's been bugging me for a while! I don't think it's telling me to sit it out. when I turn the unit on, and choose a destination it calculates the route. Then the traffic messages kick in and it tells me what the delay will be, but doesn't re-route me. However, if I then ask it to calculate the same destination again, it sends me on a different route to avoid the traffic.

When you do this, what happens to the ETA ? - If it doesn't 'improve' that would be a clue as to why it hadn't recalculated automatically.

(BTW - on some units (like my Nüvi 310), if you manually avoid traffic, it silently replaces any existing VIA point - which is highly undesirable!)

I fully agree with Johnc. I use MSN Direct in Toronto area and it works very well now for traffic incidents and traffic flow info. I have tried my Nuvi 760 with Traffic Avoidence enabled and disabled. I have seen if there is a problem on 401 collector lanes on my route, it will direct me to go to express lanes. One day there were problems in bothe express and collectors, then it started guiding me to exit from highway and then bring me back again just to avoid some ramps. This was happening with I had traffic avoidence on. Now I keep it off and decide myself.

After I "force" a re-calculation by entering the address again, the ETA improves, sometimes by 10 or 15 minutes. It definitely knows that the secondary route is quicker if there is traffic on the main route, but it doesn't re-calculate until I force it to.

HMMM Here in Az the alert only works on our freeways and not in the city (which I wish it did work in the city)and by time I get the alert and drive in the area I don't see any probems,,seem slow or the alert system is late here!!

It has been my experience that it is better to sit in the traffic then to be re routed. I wonder if everyone had a gps with traffic would rerouting just cause a new traffic pattern?

This is different behavior than my 760. There may be other variables (like firmware) that we are not considering, perhaps. When I got my 760, I had firmware 2.x something and almost immediately upgraded to 3.0. I used the unit only a few times with Traffic turned on in the Avoid menu. What annoyed me was the delay between startup and when the TTN traffic messages would kick in. 10-15 minutes was typical. My office is close to the expressway entrance, so I was usually already ON the expressway before the Traffic Alert message would pop up and it would tell me to get off and take an alternate route. This delay was one of the primary reasons that I wanted to try MSN traffic instead, because MSN does not have this delay. Anyway, I have not had my 760 set for auto-avoid-traffic since the low 3.x's as far as firmware goes, so I have no idea if this behavior has changed since then. But when I last used it while set for auto-avoid, it would silently recalculate a new route after the traffic messages popped up. If I stopped the route and restarted it, it would then pick the same traffic avoidance route again. Quite different from what you are describing. As Phil describes, looking at the destination time is very revealing. It should noticeably drop after recalculating. Otherwise, what's the point?