Traffic experience during 1000 miles trip
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  17 years
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Hi, I just completed a trip from Chicago to Sarasota with a Nuvi 3590 LMT(HD Traffic) and an Android Smartphone loaded with WAZE, Inrix traffic, and Google traffic.
Here are my observations: While driving south I purposely drove into a HUGE traffic jam north of Chattanooga, TN. While driving through Nashville all the traffic services including The Garmin HD traffic told me about the traffic north of Chattanooga.
Once I was away from the HD traffic signal (which was south of Nashville) I turned off the Garmin to see if it would remember the traffic jam and it didn't. Once I turned on the Garmin It showed me a green circle for traffic. I checked my android apps which were connected via cellular and WAZE, Inrix, and Google traffic still reminded me that I was driving into an hour backup north of Chattanooga.
The HD traffic is the best traffic service offered by Garmin but ONLY if it has a signal. WAZE, Inrix, and Google traffic work great since it's getting a cellular signal so you have updated traffic while driving.
I hope this information helps for those of you driving on a long distance trip.
Send any questions and I'll answer them on this traffic test.
Coverage Area
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Here are my observations: While driving south I purposely drove into a HUGE traffic jam north of Chattanooga, TN. While driving through Nashville all the traffic services including The Garmin HD traffic told me about the traffic north of Chattanooga.
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Here is a map of coverage areas from Navteq
Nashville has coverage. Chattanooga does not. Once outside of the Nashville coverage area, traffic would not be available until the the Atlanta coverages are picked up.
How much cell data (fees) did you incur by you test run?
Thank you for your very informative post.
Please understand that although I am absolutely not a fan of Garmin/Navteq LT services, your experiment does raise the following question: How much cell data fees did you incur by your test run?
Garmin HD
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Here are my observations: While driving south I purposely drove into a HUGE traffic jam north of Chattanooga, TN. While driving through Nashville all the traffic services including The Garmin HD traffic told me about the traffic north of Chattanooga.
...
Here is a map of coverage areas from Navteq
Nashville has coverage. Chattanooga does not. Once outside of the Nashville coverage area, traffic would not be available until the the Atlanta coverages are picked up.
Thanks for the coverage map info but I knew that part. I was curious about how the Garmin would behave once outside the area. If I would have left the Garmin on it would have kept the old traffic data from Nashville until it found another traffic signal. As stated before I purposely turned it off to see what would happen and sure enough it gave me a "green" dot since it couldn't connect to HD traffic.
Online only
Thank you for your very informative post.
Please understand that although I am absolutely not a fan of Garmin/Navteq LT services, your experiment does raise the following question: How much cell data fees did you incur by your test run?
The traffic apps only use cellular data if you leave the programs running in the background but to answer your question they do use lots of data. I didn't check the exact amount but until garmin goes back to the "live" program their traffic is not helpful if you are out of the HD traffic range.
I find the Garmin traffic service a major joke
My observations...I live in Miami and Garmin numerous times guided me off the freeway to avoid a traffic jam. I was running parallel with the freeway and needless to say the freeway was going with no problem, and i was riding the surface streets with all the lights and stops.
The jam was on the South bound lanes and i was driving north. Still it was showing red in the left corner of the unit.I got to the point i don't leave the freeway no longer i just override the unit.I am not positive about this service. I don't believe it works....
HD?
My observations...I live in Miami and Garmin numerous times guided me off the freeway to avoid a traffic jam. I was running parallel with the freeway and needless to say the freeway was going with no problem, and i was riding the surface streets with all the lights and stops.
The jam was on the South bound lanes and i was driving north. Still it was showing red in the left corner of the unit.I got to the point i don't leave the freeway no longer i just override the unit.I am not positive about this service. I don't believe it works....
Does your unit have HD traffic? HD traffic is great ONLY if you have a signal. So far it has saved my butt numerous times.