Rate Traffic Data by City
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  17 years
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I'm reading the traffic discussions and see a lot of different opinions on traffic data. Some folks find it great and others thing it's often out of date or not very accurate. So I thought: Why not just start a thread where folks to list their home city and give others and idea of how good the traffic data is. Like a mini-review of traffic data but city-specific.
I just switched from XM Navtraffic to FM / Clear Channel so I can give a review of each:
Atlanta - FM Traffic / Clear Channel:
Atlanta has both incident and flow data available. I find the data to be pretty accurate and valuable. It seems to cover quite a bit of distance from the city. It also seems to be pretty good with construction areas and street closings (like water main break or a parade).
Atlanta - XM NavTraffic:
I find this data (from NavTeq) almost as good as the FM Clear Channel data but not quite as much detail. It will give incidents and flow on the interstates but doesn't give much data on secondary roads or for street closings / construction (again - mainly secondary roads).
One difference between XM and FM - On the traffic map XM will show all the roads covered (all of the interstates) with green highlight on them if there are no reported flow problems. FM only shows yellow and red highlights where flow problems are reported.
In Tucson the Navteq traffic is far more complete and timely
In Tucson the Navteq traffic is far more complete and timely than Clear Channel is and Navteq also includes the normal city streets where Clear Channel mainly shows freeway and a couple of construction areas in town.
Garmin Drive Smart 55 - Samsung Note 10 Smartphone with Google Maps & HERE Apps
So far so good
I have just started using the traffic feature on my Nuvi. I live in Montreal and was told by the salesman at the store where I bought my unit that the traffic feature does not work outside the USA.
Well it does work. It has been fairly accurate so far but it seems to err on the cautious side, indicating traffic slowdowns that are only very minor. Still, it's a nice feature and will continue to use it.
Nuvi2797LMT (2) Nuvi260,Ford Sync3 Navigation. Captain Cook was a Yorkshire man too.
Phoenix Clear Channel - almost useless
Other than the same freeway spots that get jammed everyday, the traffic info is most of the time inaccurate either in location or timing.
By the time you get to the spot, nothing going on anyway. Just happy you didn't decide to reroute based on the false warning.
Orlando
Last year during the Superbowl it showed the streets closed just for the day. Have not been down there enough to access how it does on traffic in that area. I agree on Atlanta being good.