Real time traffic info

[geye1970]

I've noticed that the Real time traffic info is missing RAMPS, junctions, and interchanges.

This severely limits the usefulness in many cities! Can this data be added?

[CatalinP]

The data quality depends greatly on the Country you are driving. I believe the most details you can see are in Germany.

[Kzang]

Real time Traffic info sucks.. It isn't accurate at all.
I use Waze app on my phone and its more reliable.

[geye1970]

Originally Posted by Kzang

Real time Traffic info sucks.. It isn't accurate at all.
I use Waze app on my phone and its more reliable.

I personally find it to work very well, save for the lack of ramps, especially in interchanges.

The other night we were heading home after a night out and it showed +3 minutes, not uncommon around here.

As we got on the ramp from one interstate to the other, suddenly we came to a stop. Zooming in on the map, and the ramp, which is about 1 mile long, there were no colors at all. The +3 wasn't for this segment but for another stretch on interstate mainline.

[Wavy]

Originally Posted by Kzang

Real time Traffic info sucks.. It isn't accurate at all.
I use Waze app on my phone and its more reliable.

I agree. I'd be sitting in traffic and the map shows green.

[turboawd]

i never bother with any in dash nav systems. using google maps on a phone is far superior.
i'm waiting for the day a phone can sync with the idrive .....

[geye1970]

Originally Posted by turboawd

i never bother with any in dash nav systems.

Originally Posted by Kzang

Real time Traffic info sucks.. It isn't accurate at all.
I use Waze app on my phone and its more reliable.

To each their own. I find it very convenient to have my most frequent destinations - work and home programmed into buttons on the dash. I find I use it (and am alerted to traffic) more often then I would be fumbling with my phone.

[Ktmdude]

I think BMW navigation, or any other car brand’s built in navigation simply isn’t as good as google maps or waze. I often find it hard to see which lane you should drive on to go where you need to go on the BMW navigation, same goes for exits.

Maybe that’s just an issue where I live because our highway exits etc. are very close together in some locations

[Kzang]

Originally Posted by geye1970

To each their own. I find it very convenient to have my most frequent destinations - work and home programmed into buttons on the dash. I find I use it (and am alerted to traffic) more often then I would be fumbling with my phone.

You don't need to "fumble" with your phone. You click on your favorite destination and go. You don't have to "look" at the phone screen either. I have my in car navigation screen displayed while listening to my phone give me directions through the cars speaker.

I'm not sure what BMW uses to provide information on their supposed real time traffic info, but thousands of people traveling with their waze on or phone provide actual real time traffic as their phones data is being sent to their server.

This also greatly depends on if you live in rural area or metro area.

[Silververtu]

I find it very useful when you are driving between suburb and downtown. Although I wish RTTI is more "upbeat" on the traffic update. It doesn't update the map until I get to the built up traffic.

[geye1970]

Originally Posted by Silververtu

Although I wish RTTI is more "upbeat" on the traffic update. It doesn't update the map until I get to the built up traffic.

The manual states it updates every 3 minutes, however, in practice, I find it updates more often than that.

[Dogzyboy]

I actually rate the RTTI and BMW nav, the RTTI has been spot on every time I’ve used it and has re-routed me very effectively. I’m not sure if there’s been an update recently to make it more usable or if it’s due to me being in the uk though?

[sj22]

I find RTTI underrates traffic by a few minutes. If a road is red on RTTI, I will pull my phone out and check how bad things are, but if its green, its fairly accurate.

Saves me taking the phone out for every simple thing.

If you are from the pre-GPS era like me i.e. you know your roads, the daily route is consistent, and you don't need your phone to tell you which turn to take or waze to tell you where the cops are, and you don't live in a traffic crazy area, the RTTI is actually quite reasonable.