konst_ms

Hi, My name is Konstantin Erman and I own Acura RL 2005.

I have a problem with XM NavTraffic feature of the RL - in my area (Seattle) it constantly shows wrong traffic data.
I want to accent that it is not the problem with hardware or software of my particular car - instead it is the problem with the data XM NavTraffic is sending. I verified it by looking at the other RLs in the area on dealers parking lots.

Anyone can easily reproduce the problem using any RL anywhere in the US by making it show the traffic in Seattle area.
Right traffic picture can always be seen here: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/seattle/

Here are specific examples of the easily reproducible HUGE errors:

1. Every weekday around 5pm to 7pm highway 520 between I-405 and Evergreen Point Floating Bridge is "stop and go" on East to West side and free on West to East side. XM NavTraffic shows the picture opposite to real - busy and free sides of the road are swapped.

2. Every weekday around 8am to 9am highway I-90 between I-405 and 203 road (to Fall City) is "stop and go" on East to West side and free on West to East side. XM NavTraffic shows the picture opposite to real - busy and free sides of the road are swapped.

These errors effectively render the whole XM NavTraffic feature useless. As in half cases it shows absolutely wrong data you never can be sure about what it shows unless you verified it otherwise.

On one hand I understand that it is new technology and glitches are possible, no problem here. But on the other hand I'm extremely irritated by the fact that I cannot get anybody's attention to that problem. I already spend several days of my own time trying to get somewhere with two local dealerships - Acura of Lynnwood and Acura of Bellevue. It was hopeless. They always insisted to bring the car in, although the problem is reproducible on any of their cars. Then when I finally managed to show them the problem on THEIR cars (additionally to my own) they just get confused and ask "whom do you want us to call? Cosmonauts!?" In other words they consider the problem unresolvable.

Impossibility to escalate the non-trivial problem above the lowest level of technical support - that's what drives me nuts. As well as incredible amount of time I spend on it, driving there and back.

Any advise (or just condolences) would be appreciated.

with Best Regards,
Konstantin

petemc

Konstantin,

I think you have to focus on where the problem lies, which would seem to be with XM and not your local Acura dealerships who have no idea how to help you...they are car salesmen after all (OK all you car salesmen...don't flame me, my best buddy is also a car saleman...it was a joke )

You could try contacting XM using the following link...and please let us know if they are responsive to your problems.

http://www.xmradio.com/contact_us/contact_us.jsp

Pete

legendguy

Konstantin,

Concolences I guess, but I feel your pain and appreciate your anger. I guess we should probably feel a little duped too since Acura has been pretty prominent in advertising that they have this feature which, I believe, is unique to them (a "feather in the cap" I'd say to be the only one with it). Personally, I haven't checked the feature that much but always suspected that it was something that you really couldn't rely on. If the feature is not reliable I suppose Acura will lose some face and XM will lose the 3.95 a month when it comes time to resubcribe. Anyone with a positive experience with the NavTraffic?

larryka

nextlife1 reported a similar issue in the San Fransico area in this thread http://www.vtec.net/forums/one-messa...umber=2#329387. Have you tried contacting Acura customer service about this, not the dealers, but the 800 number? I would start with them, then go to XM and then go to NAVTEQ if you don't make progress with the first two...

konst_ms

Thank you, I contacted them through that link. Let's see...

konst_ms

Wow! Thanks for the link! It looks like a major problem with XM NavTraffic now!

Yes, I did. They are even less helpful than the dealership. Unfortunately. They were also totally confused, which I kind of expected, but they don't seem to have a way to escalate the issue to the higher level tech support. Looks like they don't have any! Their best guess was "Call the dealership!"

Actually I did all of the above before I started to cry out loudly.

But wait, there may be is some light at the end of the tunnel! Customer relation person in the Acura of Lynnwood dealership (her name is Sara Colness) finally get tired of my whining and calls and emails and seem to got some traction on the issue. She wrote to me yesterday: " I'm currently in contact with the Director of XM Instant Traffic and Weather. He has his techs working on it and when they know something they will contact us. As of now it is a waiting game. "

At least they finally admitted the fact that there is a problem and it is not me being crazy.

konst_ms

More good news from XM NavTraffic guys:

"Thanks for teaming up and helping us with this problem. I have looked at your recent emails from customers in the Seattle area. The problem's root cause has been discovered and we are attempting to schedule a release today that will correct the problem.
When we looked at SR-520 and I-90, we discovered that our data provider's direction indicator was reversed for certain areas of road in Seattle. We have developed a solution and I expect a correction to this condition by end of day. When corrected, the customer base in Seattle will see congestion on 520 and I-90 in the correct direction. Furthermore, this change requires no update to the vehicle systems. "

Konstantin

P.S. I feel like I killed a monster!

petemc

Wow, round of applause for XM, it's nice to hear that they are interested in keeping their customers happy

Pete

8-)

Points for you!

Oops, we don't do that anymore. You'll have to settle for thanks and a slap on the back! Congrats on hanging in there and following through to a successful conclusion.

nextlife1

konst_ms:

Incredible that you have made such potential progress on the problem with Nav Traffic inaccuracy in the Seattle area. It continues to be worthless in my opinion in the SF Bay area due to these issues. I am not clear whether you got this response directly from XM Nav Traffic or through the helpful customer relation person at the Acura dealer. I have had no luck through either avenue. Please advise.

Thanks,

nextlife1

konst_ms

I did not found a way to contact XM NavTraffic directly. It is subdivision of XM Radio and when I tried to contact XM Radio about it all I get was this email:

"We are sorry to hear about the problems you have been experiencing with your XM NavTraffic. XM NavTraffic, powered by NAVTEQ Traffic, is the nation's first satellite-based data traffic information service. As a result XM does not produce the information it is provide to our subscribers through NAVTEQ, we have escalated your email to the appropriate department."

Some "potential progress" as you correctly said was achieved through the Customer Relations person named Sara Colness in the Acura of Lynnwood dealership.

Her email: sara@acuraoflynnwood.com
Phone: 1-866-953-4444

She was able to get to the director of XM NavTraffic and make them finally admit the problem and start working on it.

I wrote to her that it is not satisfactory enough if they just fix a couple of errors I keep pushing in their face.

That's what I wrote to her:

"As my previous Email stated, customers in SF Bay area experience the same problem. Does XM NavTraffic expects customers all over US to find and report all such problems by themselves? And what about the cases where the system error is not such bold and persistent? Such problems drammatically affect people expectations about overall reliability of the system and reduce appeal of the feature! Very bad for Acura reputation.

In my professional opinion the very least thing they should do now is to check all their data for the same kind of problem. From the small statistics I could get I bet they will find tons of such errors."

But definitely it would help if she (and NavTraffic through her) get some more similar complaints from other people frustrated by these bugs. Because for now I seems to be the only person able to deliver my complaints to the right people.

Thanks!
Konstantin

nextlife1

konstan_ms

Thanks a ton for the response! I just got the following email from Navteq--we are making progress!

From: "Lindsay, Matt" <matt.lindsay@navteq.com> Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book
To: "'nextlife1@yahoo.com'" <nextlife1@yahoo.com>
Subject: SF Traffic Problems
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 17:18:48 -0800

Dear nextlife1@yahoo.com,
Your recent posts on the VTEC.net message board came to my attention so
I
wanted to send you a response to your concerns.
First let me give you a little background on the subject.
Navteq sources data from multiple partners around the country including
importantly real time speeds from public and private entities. Every
effort
is made to ensure that the data is of the highest quality possible but
there
is a complex chain involved in getting this data to the car and in a
first
generation service bugs are inevitable. Please be assured that the
information you can provide is taken very seriously and where
enhancements
to the quality of the data can be identified they will be implemented
as
soon as possible. The right place to go with your concerns is directly
to
XM, they will filter all customer issues and provide Navteq with
content
concerns. This process is important as there are a number of variables
that
can be the root cause of the problem including the XM broadcast and the
hardware and software in the car, the map itself and of course the live
data
stream. Navteq employs a substantial team of traffic analysts
dedicated to
identifying the best quality data and resolving problems with service
both
in the Navteq processing and in the underlying vendor data. This is an
ongoing process and obviously as the data is real time and nationwide
in
aspect, feedback from drivers is essential in identifying areas of
concern
to focus our attention on problem areas.
It seems you have two principle areas of concern.
1. Outages of flow data. This has been noted in California in recent
weeks,
the underlying cause is due to Caltrans who own and operate the public
sensors in California shutting down their servers for maintenance work.
Unfortunately this is at their discretion to do so, but rest assured
that as
the data is provided as a public service it is in the long term
interests of
all users that they perform this maintenance work. We are working to
address this concern directly with Caltrans to minimize the impact to
our
partners and customers.

2. Reversed direction of speed data.
There are a number of possible factors that could cause this problem.
The
good news is that it is usually possible to address the issue. It
could be
that the sensors are not functioning correctly, but more likely that
the
referencing system that ties the data to the map has a bug that can be
addressed. The information you provided on Hwy 24 is extremely
useful. If
you have other observations of this type it will go a long way to
resolving
the problem. We are actively looking into this issue right now so any
other
information you can provide is most welcomed.
One of the challenges in bringing this new product to market is in
exposing
data to a mobile community in a way that has never before been
possible. As
an early adopter of this technology, you are among the first to provide
real
time observations of the performance of the sensors and processing
technology and as such your feedback is immensely important.
Please be assured that Navteq and our partners at XM and Acura are
committed
to making your new service a state of the art experience.
Best Regards,


Matt Lindsay
Director, Dynamic Content Product Management
NAVTEQ

matt.lindsay@navteq.com

konst_ms

I received this message from Larry at XM:

I must apologize to you because my group's investigation last night of the Seattle problem proved that the NAVTEQ workaround applied on 3/2/05 did not fully fix the problem. I am escalating this problem internally so that we can close out this problem once and for all. I don't know at the time of this memo how quickly we can produce a change to the production systems. Obviously, the highest priority is being applied to this problem to minimize customer impact.

konst_ms

I'm glad to report that as of today's evening the issue with SR-520 looks fixed. Can't say about another one - I don't drive there every day.

How things looks like in Bay area?

Thanks!
Konstantin

hendjaz

I am glad they corrected things for 520. Maybe now they can focus on I-90 between I-5 and I-405. There is usually no information displayed on this busy corridor which includes the other floating bridge leaving Seattle to the East and when there is a display it is often incorrect and not even close. Such as showing blue for free flowing traffic but in reality it is stop and go with a sea of brake lights. I have had the RL since October and never seen much information on this corridor and certainly not reliable information when it does show up. The WSDOT info on a computer is much more thorough and accurate but evidently this information is not available to the Navtraffic service. At least for the Seattle area I would still have to say this service is not ready for primetime and certainly not for a monthly fee.

konst_ms

I specifically asked them to pay attention at I-90 traffic, because to the east of I-405 it definitely showed congestion in the wrong direction.

For the last week there were no traffic information at all in the places I pointed them to (probably because they realized that better not provide info at all than provide the wrong one) and yesterday evening information reappeares and it seems correct to me on SR-520. I just didn't check it on I-90.

But it would not hurt if you contact the Customer Relations person named Sara Colness in the Acura of Lynnwood dealership with your concerns. Because for now it looks like single customer complaint to them.

Her email: sara@acuraoflynnwood.com
Phone: 1-866-953-4444

Thank you!
Konstantin

hendjaz

I know Sara too and will let her know. Perhaps more importantly it is good to let Acura customer relations (800 number) know as they field issues from a far wider geograhic area. I found them helpful along with Sara when Navtraffic did not work at all for the first few weeks when I bought the RL. They finally replaced the xm box in the trunk and that cured that problem as I have since been able to get acuralink and navtraffic service. Too bad the traffic info is still so incomplete, at least for important parts of Seattle.

nextlife1

There has been no change that I have noticed on the accuracy in the Bay area. I know the guy from Navteq said they would be working on it in March, so we'll see.

Is basically everything in Seattle now accurate as far as you can tell?

nextlife1

konst_ms

Not quite. See this thread: https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=401

But other than that yes, it looked right list time it worked at all.

nextlife1

These type of outtages happen fairly frequently in the SF Bay area--I have just gotten used to them. I used to worry that it was my car malfunctioning, but on two occasions I went by the dealership and saw that their showroom model was doing the exact same thing.

I have to say that this combined with the inaccuracies make the service undependable and thus virtually worthless for me. I am sure in a few years the technology will be improved but to my mind it is just not there yet.

nextlife1