Just sent a comprehensive set of screenshots to Audi with further explanation of the problems we are all having. Will report back as soon as they reply.

2 hours ago, JDextrose said:

I have had the same issue for the same time period, initially TMC only showed the same 2 messages for ~3 weeks then stopped working altogether. 

However, on a trip down the M5 last week, it clicked into life just north of Bridgewater and showed 7 messages, all attributed to Greatest Hits Radio. These did not update and fell off after an hour and then TMC switched itself back off. 

On the return journey, the TMC came to life around Bridgewater again, 7 messages again, then auto updated to 8 messages. All were attributed to Greatest Hits again, all fell off after ~1 hour.

TMC has not worked since. 

I have googled FM transmitter locations and signal strength but nothing from this has really provided any further info of use.

Perhaps there are other places in the UK where the system comes to life?

I have noted that FM reception as a whole is a bit shonky of late and have seen reference to transmission strength being reduced due to higher energy costs, not sure if this is reliable information or not though.

Curiously, and probably coincidentally, the last time my Skoda TMC received information was near Bridgwater as we travelled to Minehead on 10th April. It has not reported any information since, in spite of being in Bridgwater five days later on the way back.

WOW, that is strange. I've not been anywhere near the M5 as I live south east & not noticed this kind of reaction on my travels, even down to the Isle of wight, nothing.

I have fiddled with radio stations, FM as well as DAB to see if I could prompt it back into action but no joy. I did reconsider resetting the radio system but at the time didn't fancy that.

 

For my trip down to the Isle of wight I had to re-initiate my TomTom which worked fine with traffic but alas I still had to suffer the blues on the M25 😒 

Just now, STV16L said:

WOW, that is strange. I've not been anywhere near the M5 as I live south east & not noticed this kind of reaction on my travels, even down to the Isle of wight, nothing.

I have fiddled with radio stations, FM as well as DAB to see if I could prompt it back into action but no joy. I did reconsider resetting the radio system but at the time didn't fancy that.

 

For my trip down to the Isle of wight I had to re-initiate my TomTom which worked fine with traffic but alas I still had to suffer the blues on the M25 😒 

 

Any chance you could pop over to Dover, park the cliffs (Not on by the edge !!!) and see if you can pick up French TMC FM ?......  I had good live traffic when I was in France/Belgium in April.

8 minutes ago, Arthur124 said:

 

Any chance you could pop over to Dover, park the cliffs (Not on by the edge !!!) and see if you can pick up French TMC FM ?......  I had good live traffic when I was in France/Belgium in April.

 

Well there's a thought, but unfortunately I'm not in Kent, I'm in Essex & Clacton or somewhere nearby is about as close as I could get. Certainly not as favorable as the the Kent coast where I'm quite aware that overseas stations can be picked up. I would need to make a special trip for that even tho' I do pass Kent or even go into Kent from time to time, not a very instant solution, but I do like your idea 🙂

21 minutes ago, Arthur124 said:

 

Any chance you could pop over to Dover, park the cliffs (Not on by the edge !!!) and see if you can pick up French TMC FM ?......  I had good live traffic when I was in France/Belgium in April.

I’m as sure as I can be from looking at the Audi RNSE firmware (which has also suffered loss of its TMC service) that TMC elsewhere in Europe is completely unaffected. I have a lot of customers based there using my updated RNSE firmware and not a single one (other than those in the UK) are reporting loss of service.

 

In fact I even switched the firmware to listen to INRIX, and the missing TMC messages have reappeared. However the indicated locations are complete and utter garbage since the location tables used by Trafficmaster are completely different from INRIX as they are competing commercial suppliers.

 

44 minutes ago, pcbbc said:

I’m as sure as I can be from looking at the Audi RNSE firmware (which has also suffered loss of its TMC service) that TMC elsewhere in Europe is completely unaffected. I have a lot of customers based there using my updated RNSE firmware and not a single one (other than those in the UK) are reporting loss of service.

 

In fact I even switched the firmware to listen to INRIX, and the missing TMC messages have reappeared. However the indicated locations are complete and utter garbage since the location tables used by Trafficmaster are completely different from INRIX as they are competing commercial suppliers.

 

That is interesting. So it seems that a Firmware tweek along with new maps containing the INRIX location tables would solve the problem. I hope you don't mind but I have sent this info to the person I am dealing with at Audi obviously not mentioning your uprated software in case they have a problem over it.

Just received this reply from Audi. Maybe there is hope that this will get sorted.

 

Dear Mr. Powell, Thank you for the thorough information you provided. Our department will document the issue with TMC traffic notifications and forward it to Audi for further investigation. The situation is not directly related to our scope of support, so we cannot commit to a time frame at this point. We appreciate your cooperation and sincerely regret for the inconvenience. Please, do not hesitate to contact us for any assistance you may need. We are available 24/7 and can be reached either by calling 0800-2792884, or by contacting this email. We kindly ask that you indicate your case reference 0001881944, for a quick follow-up. We wish you safe journeys in your Audi A6.

Kind regards, Sotiris Audi Digital Services Team Phone  0800 279 2884 Email    *****@*****.tld

36 minutes ago, Hillbilly23 said:

That is interesting. So it seems that a Firmware tweek along with new maps containing the INRIX location tables would solve the problem. I hope you don't mind but I have sent this info to the person I am dealing with at Audi obviously not mentioning your uprated software in case they have a problem over it.

Unfortunately Audi stopped producing maps for the RNSE in 2020. So it’s not going to receive an update.

 

But it doesn’t even need a firmware update, a change of provider can all be done in the maps data. It was just easier for me to tweak the firmware to make the received INRIX data look like it had come from Trafficmaster, than to reverse engineer and modify the map data. And I before you ask I don’t have a copy of the proprietary INRIX location tables.

It seems inconceivable to me that numerous manufacturers covering numerous models of cars (thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of vehicles) will be willing or even able to provide software updates etc to all affected owners.

 

The more likely course of action is to address and remedy the root cause of the problem that manifested itself in mid to late March of this year.

 

Having left the Skoda flock, I'm now in a vw Cc and I'm having the same issue with the lack of the TMC feature. No traffic updates when I press the traffic button.

I have a few friends with VAG based cars, and they are in the same boat with no dynamic routing.

 

It's become a real pain in the backside for me as I do travel around the country. 

 

I'm watching this thread eagerly and I may have to get my old Tom Tom off the wife just to route around traffic.

2 hours ago, Arthur124 said:

It seems inconceivable to me that numerous manufacturers covering numerous models of cars (thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of vehicles) will be willing or even able to provide software updates etc to all affected owners.

 

The more likely course of action is to address and remedy the root cause of the problem that manifested itself in mid to late March of this year.

 

I would have thought so as well. But if Trafficmaster have stopped I don't know how it can be done unless VAG etc can get INRIX to mimic it.

When I visited my local dealer (for the last time I think) I asked one of the sales reps to check an octavia and he wasn’t sure why but I showed him and he said “yeah that’s going to be an issue”

We did check on a brand new car and they seemed to work but couldn’t find the traffic option

@pcbbc - Not sure if you've seen this thread: https://www.navitotal.com/general-discussions-about-tomtom/rds-tmc-decrypted-t18251.html

 

Seems they were able to make a selection of mctx.dat files (used by TomTom) so the user could choose a TMC provider - both TrafficMaster and INRIX are included. No idea if you can extract the location table to use on the RNSE or not

 

I've done some more poking around the MIB2, I expect the location table is in one of the NDS files which is a closed source ZIPVFS sqlite database. A little work has been done on changing these files (Seat Mapcare) but it doesn't seem fully understood: https://www.seatcupra.net/forums/threads/updating-the-inbuilt-mib2-satnav-mib2-tricks-and-lost-mib1-card-solution.388586/post-4702740

6 hours ago, Arthur124 said:

It seems inconceivable to me that numerous manufacturers covering numerous models of cars (thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of vehicles) will be willing or even able to provide software updates etc to all affected owners.

 

The more likely course of action is to address and remedy the root cause of the problem that manifested itself in mid to late March of this year.

 

 

Not sure I understand the logic of this - surely the more impacted vehicles/owners, the more likely a solution will be rolled out? The way to make this happen more quickly is for everyone to keep applying pressure to the impacted manufacturers. 

 

Remedying the root cause may not be possible - this would mean getting Trafficmaster to reverse their decision to stop broadcasting TMC updates. If their broadcast ceased because they allowed their licence to broadcast the traffic data to lapse, then it won't be so straightforward to just 'turn it back on'. 

1 hour ago, joek666 said:

 

Not sure I understand the logic of this - surely the more impacted vehicles/owners, the more likely a solution will be rolled out? The way to make this happen more quickly is for everyone to keep applying pressure to the impacted manufacturers. 

 

Remedying the root cause may not be possible - this would mean getting Trafficmaster to reverse their decision to stop broadcasting TMC updates. If their broadcast ceased because they allowed their licence to broadcast the traffic data to lapse, then it won't be so straightforward to just 'turn it back on'. 

 

I'll try to answer this !!!......

 

In autumn 2021 UK Broadcasting Licensing for FM Additional Services was put out tender for the provision of RDS TMC services using Classic FM sub-carrier (amongst a host of other FM provisions).

 

Contract to supply RDS TMC FM Live Traffic Data in the UK was awarded from February 2022 for a 9 year period.  This contract was awarded to INRIX. 

 

I've included contractual information in the attached document. 

 

It is an interesting read, but I refer you to section A5.1 (page 30) TMC (8A). 

 

As I understand, INRIX are the current supplier of RDS TMC Live Traffic in the UK. 

 

I have contacted both INRIX and Broadcast Licensing (OFCOM) to inform them that the service previously supplied is no longer available as of mid to end March 2023.

 

I'm awaiting their response.

 

consultation-additional-services-licence.pdf

 

 

Edited 11 May, 20233 yr by Arthur124

15 minutes ago, Arthur124 said:

 

I'll try to answer this !!!......

 

In autumn 2021 UK Broadcasting Licensing for FM Additional Services was put out tender for the provision of RDS TMC services using Classic FM sub-carrier (amongst a host of other FM provisions).

 

Contract to supply RDS TMC FM Live Traffic Data in the UK was awarded from February 2022 for a 9 year period.  This contract was awarded to INRIX. 

 

I've included contractual information in the attached document. 

 

It is an interesting read, but I refer you to section A5.1 (page 30) TMC (8A). 

 

As I understand, INRIX are the current supplier of RDS TMC Live Traffic in the UK. 

 

I have contacted both INRIX and Broadcast Licensing (OFCOM) to inform them that the service previously supplied is no longer available as of mid to end March 2023.

 

I'm awaiting their response.

 

consultation-additional-services-licence.pdf 443.66 kB · 0 downloads

 

 

 

Until March there were two suppliers. It appears Trafficmaster allowed their licence to lapse while INRIX have continued.

 

This isn't much help to Skoda owners, together with a range of other vehicle manufacturers, because they were all configured to receive traffic data from Trafficmaster and not INRIX. Unless Skoda and the other manufacturers have very recently made a deal with INRIX (or are about to), it appears as though the TMC service has effectively been shut down permanently for us.

 

It's very much up the the manufacturers to figure out a way to resolve this. Anything short of this will be a big kick in the teeth for many thousands of owners.

7 hours ago, joek666 said:

 

Until March there were two suppliers. It appears Trafficmaster allowed their licence to lapse while INRIX have continued.

 

Correct.

 

I’m not sure what the deal is with Trafficmaster, but Ofcom do not appear to be responsible for auctioning their licence. Ofcoms only responsibility is for the national additional services licence on Classic.

 

It seems likely that due to the way their networks came about, Capital and Heart probably own the rights to use their additional services bandwidth and it is therefore not subject to a competitive tender process. I draw this conclusion from the Ofcom documents, and the fact that even the last tender process (for the previous period in 2010) mentions only a SINGLE national additional services licence, and yet we know that TrafficMaster used to broadcast on Capital/Heart in conjunction with the service on Classic.

 

Regrettably it seems to me this whole process is conceptually flawed. Since the location tables are owned and maintained by the service providers, it means that a change of licensee will result in a termination of service to existing devices, unless by chance they are still receiving an updates from the manufacturer, and the manufacturer chooses to contract with the new provider. Typical non-joined up government thinking if you ask me.

 

To emphasise: that’s not what’s happened here, the termination of the TrafficMaster service on  Capital/Heart seems to be down to other factors. But I’d be surprised if they weren’t also commercial in nature. Their 2021 accounts don’t look particularly healthy and note the directors comments…

 

 

 

Edit: Adding link https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03666090

Edited 12 May, 20233 yr by pcbbc

Further to my contact with Audi Digital Services I have now managed to find the Email address of the MD of the VAG group and will be informing him of this problem as soon as I have the time to compose a message. If anyone else would like to also contact him it is - 

*****@*****.tld

It is oliver . blume (at) volkswagon . de   just miss out any spaces and use the at symbol for Email.

8 hours ago, joek666 said:

 

Until March there were two suppliers. It appears Trafficmaster allowed their licence to lapse while INRIX have continued.

 

This isn't much help to Skoda owners, together with a range of other vehicle manufacturers, because they were all configured to receive traffic data from Trafficmaster and not INRIX. Unless Skoda and the other manufacturers have very recently made a deal with INRIX (or are about to), it appears as though the TMC service has effectively been shut down permanently for us.

 

It's very much up the the manufacturers to figure out a way to resolve this. Anything short of this will be a big kick in the teeth for many thousands of owners.

It will not be good for manufacturers hoping people will continue to buy their cars when features can be "turned off" without any consideration of present owners. Lets hope they wise up and find a solution.

 

There is now a thread on Honest John from VW owners having the same problem - https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/180432/vw---tmc-not-working

I have just sent an Email to the GB News TV Channel highlighting our problem. Worth a try to get some extra coverage.

Sent to VW MD.

 

Dear Mr Blume.

                             I do not know if you are aware of this problem but it is affecting many thousands if not more car owners with built in manufacturers navigation units in the UK. It is affecting their performance on VW group, Honda and other manufacturers vehicles. It concerns a feature called Dynamic Navigation which reacts to traffic information sent by various FM Radio stations including Classic FM, Heart and Capitol Radio. The information received by the navigation units is used to advise the vehicles using it of any hold ups on their route and to divert them in order to avoid the hold ups. There were originally two providers of this service - Trafficmaster and INRIX. The Trafficmaster service which VW Group and others used was turned off around the end of March with no warning and has left users with no means of avoiding hold ups. Many motorists have contacted the vehicle manufacturers about the problem but have just been advised to go to a main dealer for an expensive diagnostic check which solves nothing. Several owners have done this to no avail as the problem is not with individual vehicles but that the manner in which the remaining INRIX service is sent is incompatible with the navigation units in their vehicles. This has been proven when other vehicles at the main dealer premises have been found by technicians to have the same problem. I personally have complained to Audi about this as my navigation no longer has this feature and had the same unhelpful response. The lack of this feature can only lead to longer tailbacks at incidents and therefore more air pollution. The manufacturers seem reluctant to accept that they have a problem and even more reluctant to fix it so I thought I would inform you personally of the situation. I have added links to some on line forums in order that you can see the frustration being caused by this issue. It seems that a solution needs to be found perhaps by INRIX sending the data to the affected vehicles by using the Trafficmaster location tables. I will add that this RDS-TMC problem is only affecting the UK as people who have been to France in their vehicles say everything works fine there. If you would like more information on this feel free to Email me at *****@*****.tld or call 01538360343 and I will be happy to help.

 

Kind regards - Neil. (A6 owner)

 

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/512443-tmc-traffic-events-no-longer-being-receivedfirmware-update-required/

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/CarTalkUK/comments/132nuvb/tmc_traffic_message_channel_completely_stopped/

 

https://www.hondacivicforum.co.uk/threads/2015-civic-1-8-ex-traffic-alert-and-detour-stopped-working.86586/

 

48 minutes ago, Hillbilly23 said:

Sent to VW MD.

 

Dear Mr Blume.

                             I do not know if you are aware of this problem but it is affecting many thousands if not more car owners with built in manufacturers navigation units in the UK. It is affecting their performance on VW group, Honda and other manufacturers vehicles. It concerns a feature called Dynamic Navigation which reacts to traffic information sent by various FM Radio stations including Classic FM, Heart and Capitol Radio. The information received by the navigation units is used to advise the vehicles using it of any hold ups on their route and to divert them in order to avoid the hold ups. There were originally two providers of this service - Trafficmaster and INRIX. The Trafficmaster service which VW Group and others used was turned off around the end of March with no warning and has left users with no means of avoiding hold ups. Many motorists have contacted the vehicle manufacturers about the problem but have just been advised to go to a main dealer for an expensive diagnostic check which solves nothing. Several owners have done this to no avail as the problem is not with individual vehicles but that the manner in which the remaining INRIX service is sent is incompatible with the navigation units in their vehicles. This has been proven when other vehicles at the main dealer premises have been found by technicians to have the same problem. I personally have complained to Audi about this as my navigation no longer has this feature and had the same unhelpful response. The lack of this feature can only lead to longer tailbacks at incidents and therefore more air pollution. The manufacturers seem reluctant to accept that they have a problem and even more reluctant to fix it so I thought I would inform you personally of the situation. I have added links to some on line forums in order that you can see the frustration being caused by this issue. It seems that a solution needs to be found perhaps by INRIX sending the data to the affected vehicles by using the Trafficmaster location tables. I will add that this RDS-TMC problem is only affecting the UK as people who have been to France in their vehicles say everything works fine there. If you would like more information on this feel free to Email me at *****@*****.tld or call 01538360343 and I will be happy to help.

 

Kind regards - Neil. (A6 owner)

 

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/512443-tmc-traffic-events-no-longer-being-receivedfirmware-update-required/

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/CarTalkUK/comments/132nuvb/tmc_traffic_message_channel_completely_stopped/

 

https://www.hondacivicforum.co.uk/threads/2015-civic-1-8-ex-traffic-alert-and-detour-stopped-working.86586/

 

 

Excellently describes the issue.

Fingers crossed the issue will be investigated and resolved soon.