is truly working or not? i have not seen this option work seen ownership. i wish it was a rl test that could be run with a code or voice command.. i know about calling XM. they say the same things and excuses. anyone have an answer?

 

First of all, I assume you are in one of the "markets" served by NavTraffic. If you aren't, then you're not going to see anything on your screen. However not all is lost, because you can scroll to one of the markets such as New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, etc. to view those areas to determine if you see the NavTraffic icons. If you do not see any construction, speed limit, or other types of NavTraffic icons in any of those markets(make sure the resolution is within the NavTraffic min/max on your screen), it is a good bet that NavTraffic is not functioning on your car.

 

I would disagree with the above post.

You can't just "scroll" to another market. It is my understanding (confirmed only by myself and one other RL owner) that if you are more than a reasonable amount from a market (determined by your actual vehicle location and confirmed by XM's terrestrial repeaters) you will not receive traffic updates.

Why? A couple of reasons, but most logically due to the amount of data and time to update. Imagine simulataneously receiving traffic updates for all the areas. The bandwidth and nav system processor isn't [fast] enough to allow for this.

 

Moved to nav subforum.

lindros2 is correct, you cannot just scroll to another market. I tried before Why not drive to one of those markets? It will be a good drive in a great car

 

Ditto on Lindros2's and vp911's posts. However, bmac may be able to see some other markets from his specific location.

I'll detail my personal experience from where I live...coverage is sure to be different in every location.

I live in a non-NavTraffic market in East Central Mississippi.

From home, I cannot get a NavTraffic display from any of the markets...say Houston, Atlanta, Fort Worth/Dallas or any of the locations in Florida...all of these would the the closest to me. I've tried several others also on the East Coast and Mid West.

The only NavTraffic I've seen on my '05RL is from Atlanta and then only when I drive over to Birmingham...I begin seeing NavTraffic when I'm somewhere close to Tuscaloosa on the way to Birmingham.

I purchased the car in Shreveport, Louisiana and cannot get Dallas/Fort Worth or Houston from Shreveport! Dallas is only 2 hours away from Shreveport. So, go figure on the coverage when near some of the covered metropolitan areas. I was last in Shreveport just before Christmas.

I was in Birmingham about 10 days ago and confirmed that my NavTraffic is still working by scrolling over to Atlanta. I noticed this time that the display showed some NavTraffic data...construction is what I noticed mostly...for quite a ways outside the Atlanta area, so I assume that in the Atlanta area, they've expanded certain types of coverage since the last time I checked...and that's great news!

Fred

 

Traffic is only displayed during the middle map scales and will be designated by the traffic bar in the middle and bottom of your screen. I live in LA and we seem to have a lot of freeways and density so the scales may vary by location. Try asking handsfree for " Display Traffic List". Mine will sometimes return "No Traffic within 30 miles" as a screen text.
I will repeat what I have previously posted on this forum regarding the NavTraffic: The data is really close to useless - I drive along and see no other cars and the map shows ftraffic velocity at lower than 35MPH. I've driven along a freeway to a freeway intersection and the freeway has been completely closed for an accident or for roadworks and it doesn't even show up on the map. The system is in place to be really usefull but until it is "real-time" as it is advertized then it is of dudious use.

 

You may be correct that there is some limit to how far you can scroll, however, I live ~45 miles from Philly and scrolling does indeed work at that distance. I have also scrolled to NYC from here (~130 miles) and have also observed active NavTraffic icons that far away.

 

I agree that NavTraffic will not be a huge success until it is realtime. I have found that it is really more of a toy than any real convenience.

I just renewed my XM subscription (from the free 1-year dealer paid subscription containing NavTraffic) and I was surprised that the XM operator did not even make a pitch for me to continue NavTraffic. Prior to the call I had decided that it was not worth the $4/month anyway so I didn't even get a chance to say No Thank You.

When and if they expand coverage and make the system more responsive is when I may reconsider.

 

I think NavTraffic's usefulness depends on where you live and where you drive. When I worked in DC, NavTraffic was very useful to me. It might not have been true real time, but it was more current than any of the radio stations. When I worked in Tyson's Corner, on the other hand, NavTraffic was useless, since it didn't cover the road I was taking. Overall, I think it is worth $50/year, just in case.

 

bmac, I agree with you - it's a great toy but useless for real time traffic. How does the local news broadcast on TV get the info but we cannot?

 

Does the effectiveness of NavTraffic vary with the particular city/market? Opinions about it are all over the board.

 

Yes, the effectiveness depends on the city. I think some cities have the infrastructure to make more data available than others. For example, NavTraffic in New York is more extensive than in Washington, DC. So basically, YMMV, depending on where you are.

 

LA has the infrastructure to allow the TV stations to display the data so I think that it's the supply of data from Navtraffic to XM is where the hold up is. The amount of data in the stream of the radio signal is insignificant compared to the audio information so XM is off the hook. I am not convinced that Navtraffic are getting useful information and shipping it out fast enough for us to use in the real time world.

 

Something you may not be aware of is that XM purchaces traffic data from Navteq. Navteq is responsible for the real-time accurracy of the data sent to cars. Navteq gathers data in each city (but not every city). It then sends that data to XM who then sends it to the car. XMs portion and the displaying of that information on the Nav system is short compared to the overall process.

There 31 cities (markets) that are covered by XM NavTraffic. The latest cities to be added are Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver-Boulder, Milwaukee-Racine, Portland, Providence-Warwick-Pawtucket, Sacramento, San Antonio, Wilmington.

Hope this helps.