FM Traffic

I have the Nüvi 660 which came with 3 free months. I have a month to go and I am very doubtful I will continue to subscribe. The reports are spotty and not very accurate.

I live on Long Island, NY and used it between here, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Wash. DC.

I had a c550 and now a c580. I tested them side by side for a while in Kansas City. They both seemed to have the major incidents, but sometimes one had something the other didn't. The benefit I saw with both is with road construction. Several exit ramps were closed, and knowing this ahead of time was a help.

You have to remember that traffic info must be fed into a computer before it can arrive on your gpsr. Then received by your unit over the air via radio waves. Various metro cities seem to have a different lag time. I chose to stick with msn more for the gas info than traffic. Kansas doesn't have that bad of traffic on a daily basis. My other reason for keeping it was the times that I travel out of state it is handy.

Daniel

I live in the Phoenix Metro area and use the freeway system daily. My wife and I use similar routes and times in commuting to work (at least in the AM) so, I've been able to check out the reliability of the information provided. I have found that some of the information is inaccurate but it still saves me considerable time avoiding the "delay" areas. Using the information with my 660, I can cut off as much as 15 minutes on a one hour commute. So, there's much room for improvement but at least for me, the benefits outweigh the downside.

I use the x-ways a lot here and the FM Traffic accessory has been handy. I'll probably renew once my subscription expires. But there are a few things about how it integrates with the 650 that I don't care for.

It appears that it automatically routes you around when an x-way problem is bad enough, but it takes you to the same surface streets that everyone else is using to try to avoid the problem. Also, since the traffic reports are for x-ways only, it may (usually does) route you into a surface street jamb-up.

I still like it, though, and feel the traffic reports are pretty accurate for what it covers.

I agree!

Yes, the traffic info is good to have. I have to MSN, but I still listen to the traffic reports on the radio. 9 times out of 10, the MSN has it.

I use the MSN for gas prices, too, but my wife and 11 yr old daughter steal my GPSr during the weekends to check out movie theaters and movie times on the MSN.

It's pretty good, especially if you have XM traffic too.

I've been using the free three-month subscription with my nuvi 660, and I'm pretty satisfied so far. If you have XM radio and you're in one of the markets that has XM traffic, it's pretty cool using them to complement each other. What I've been doing is, once I get a warning on my GPS that there is traffic ahead, I turn on my XM traffic station and it gives me more detail about what's up a head and how bad a delay it is.

friends and i took a road trip to LA, where there's traffic everywhere you go... and my friend had a magellan with msn... didnt think it really helped much...

i travel between fairfield,ca and san francisco a lot( about a 45 min to an hour drive) and since i take the same route all the time i pretty much know the short cuts if there's traffic... so i opted not to get the fm updates upgrade for my nuvi 350

I do not believe that Magellan offers MSN service on any of their gps's. They use regular FM traffic service. Traffic info is only as good as the gps engine that decides what to do with that information that matters. My understanding is the Nuvi 350 does a decent job with the traffic info it recieves.

Ray

How does the trial expire? Does it just stop working? Do you get a warning on the GPS? Do you get an email?

On my Nuvi 660 (and on my StreetPilot 2720), there is no visible notification that the subscription was expired, other than when you go into the traffic setup screen. On that screen you can see the current status of your subscription (i.e. when it WILL expire, or that it is ALREADY expired).

Jens:

Just a heads up! I travel to TO as much as twice a week from Buffalo, I don't have traffic on my GPSr but have a satellite radio and Toronto traffic is not the satellite. So I'm not sure if it would be on the GPSr.

I commute from Oakville to Markham everyday which means that I need to nagivate through Toronto traffic everyday. My experience is that the live traffic feature is relatively poor. I find that the traffic reports on the radio are far more reliable. I've had situations where I've sat in traffic not moving for 15 minutes without even a hint of a traffic problem from the GPS. [in Toronto, the traffic feature isn't really needed since traffic is always very bad].

Another thing that I don't like is that if you have a route of point A to point B and there are 2 separate traffic conjestions, it seems to calculate a new route for each conjestion independantly. In cases like this, it's often better to introduce a totally new route rather than trying to solve each conjestion in isolation.

When calculating the fastest route, it seems to calculate the fastest route as if there was no traffic. Then it gives traffic warnings. This results in a route that may not be the fastest anymore. On a (perhaps) related note, shouldn't the traffic avoidance option factor traffic delays when calculating a route?

Having complained about the traffic feature, I'll likely renew it because:
a) every guy likes a techy thing (even if it doesn't work that well)
b) I'm naive enough to think that this service may actually improve.

Great site. Lots of useful info. Thanks to all for contributing.

I live in the DFW area and the traffic info has been very helpfull. I find similar time savings on a 1 hour commute.

I have heard similarly mixed results. If traffic is a big issue in your area, I'd spring for it. If not, dno't.

It only helps so much in Houston. I10 is always backed up and it doesnt always report that. It does show some good things. Overall I dont know that I will renew it when it expires.

I used the traffic for the complimentary for the three months but did not renew the service. It sometimes was good but around Chicago there is not many ways to get into the city except for the expressways.

I used a Nuvi 660 with the FM traffic 3 month subscription. Initially, I didn't think much of
it and most GPS sites noted results can vary.
Well, I'm hooked. In Phoenix, AZ, the parts
of the freeways were closed during construction
and the FM traffic showed the closed routes.
The Nuvi just auto-routes around the closed
area. Another example was when we were coming
in from Flagstaff, AZ, and 20 miles out of
Phoenix, the Nuvi announced road closed in the
inner city area and routed us around.

I have noticed in the last few weeks the data has been less accurate. The traffic is displayed but as the traffic clears on the roads, the gps is slow to get the clearing updates.

Im a truck driver mine came with one year free
Buy the time I enter a new city Im allready in the mess before it updates. My CB is still beats it on traffic
PS i have all the latest updates on it
I guess if I stayed in the same city all the time were it stayed locked on it would be okay but when you get out of that city and drive into another one it takes to long to lock on again.. Used in
Dallas Kansas City and Houston So Far. I even have the cable taped to the windshield.

I live in London, Ont, but during my free 3 months of traffic service, I had to take a two week trip to Ottawa. The FM traffic as I passed through Toronto and while in Ottawa seemed good enough. If I lived in either one of those cities, I would subsribe to the FM Traffic service. I know there are issues right now, but it is still a developing technology / service, especially in Canada, and it costs less than a tank of gas for a year subscription.

I'm considering getting a Nuvi-680 soon, because it can subscribe to (and receive) BOTH the FM-Traffic, and the MSN-Traffic, so that I may compare for myself to see which I prefer.

The Nuvi-660 ONLY allows you to use the FM-Traffic-

Amen to that! You can't get any more real time, then real time. I don't use my cb unless I am traveling, but I rely on it heavily then for speed traps and real time traffic suituations.