Columbus Sat Nav says empty roads have traffic jams !

[dochsm]

This often happens, mainly in Europe but also in the UK.

 

I'll be happily driving along and the nav tells warns me about traffic problems ahead.

It shows slow moving arrows on my road for miles in front of me and sometimes even offers to change the route to go around the jam.

 

Only problem is the road is perfectly clear, not a car in sight.

 

I thought it might be confusing my route with a nearby parallel road but this also happed in the middle of France on a motorway, miles from anywhere with no nearby roads. I was doing 130 kph and the few cars that were around were overtaking me even faster than that! No slow moving traffic at all and no sign that there had been any recently.

 

Its even told me the road is closed at the very point I was driving though. (Thats happened a few times on the A5 near Shrewsbury)

 

Its got so that I hardly trust it anymore

 

Anyone else had this issue?

 

 

[KBPhoto]

Yes. But it's down to the TMC information being sent out incorrectly via the radio waves not a fault of the Columbus.

[camelspyyder]

Amundsen the same.  e.g. often says 10 km queue on Lincoln bypass when its clear.

 

Truly there is a queue like that sometimes but I would like the TMC to be more trustworthy.

[mannyo]

The Columbus uses TMC data which is provided by the Highways Agency, it is simply showing what its being told about. The same data is picked up by all kinds of devices including Tomtoms with the TMC option, and other factory systems, they will all be telling you the same thing.

 

I would guess that there were problems in the area earlier but the HA being true to form did not remove the alerts from TMC.

[dochsm]

The Columbus uses TMC data which is provided by the Highways Agency, it is simply showing what its being told about. The same data is picked up by all kinds of devices including Tomtoms with the TMC option, and other factory systems, they will all be telling you the same thing.

 

I would guess that there were problems in the area earlier but the HA being true to form did not remove the alerts from TMC.

Yes I understand its to do with the TMC.

On a recent trip from near the Wash to North Wales I checked the traffic reports on the columbus when it told me the bit of clear road I had just driven through was blocked. The TMC agreed it was blocked, but it clearly wasn't

.

However, as a test I also had the same route going on my tomTom Live.

That didn't report any delays at that location at all but correctly showed small delays elsewhere (that the columbus didn't) and also was more accurate in the time of arrival.

 

So it looks like somehow they either use different TMC data or else the columbus doesn't clear out old data when it gets new stuff or if a previous report is no longer applicable. The latter seems the most likely.