UPDATE: It looks like they’ve changed the model number on this one from the 2505 M LIVE to the 2535 M LIVE.
UPDATE 2: Read my hands on review of the TomTom GO 2535M LIVE.
TomTom is finally bringing HD Traffic to the US with the TomTom GO 2505 M LIVE. The company claims this is a killer app, a game changer. Why? They say that three things make it better than current live traffic options:
- More accurate reporting of actual jams, reducing the frequency of false positives and false negatives; they say it is twice as accurate as other systems (80% for HD Traffic vs. 40% for others)
- Coverage – While TMC has six million miles of road coverage, Tom Tom says they have 12 times as much, translating into more secondary and tertiary coverage for intelligent routing around jams
- Frequency of updates – Every two minutes vs. 15 minutes for alternative live traffic reporting
The model that will feature all this road warrior goodness is the TomTom GO 2505M LIVE. It’s built on the same hardware platform as the TomTom GO 2505TM, and shares that device’s 5” capacitive touchscreen, new interface and magnetic mount. Connected LIVE services such as Google Local search will be provided by AT&T, with a free initial trial, the length of which has not been announced. Lifetime maps updates are included as well. The 2505 M LIVE is expected to be available late spring for a MSRP of $349.
Here’s the full news release.
About Rich Owings
You have to understand TomTom speak. When they say they cover 12 times as much as TMC, they’re a bit misleading. I think you’ll find that 6 million miles of traffic coverage claimed is primarily IQRoutes historical data, not actual real-time traffic events. And as with their “One million more miles” map claim, the “twice as accurate” statement doesn’t mean compared to all other US traffic services, but instead against the worst. In any case, this isn’t going to be the same cell-probe sourced HDTraffic found in Europe, at least anytime soon. Still, claiming it as HDTraffic should help on the unit sales.
I’m not sure if there are even 6 million miles of road ways in the US never mind 12 times that much. I believe they are using lanes to multiply what they are describing.
No mention of whether they are still using a GPRS chip or whether they are using EDGE now. Nothing like going to sleep waiting for an answer from a Live query.
The use of the GD Traffic moniker here is for confusions sake only as it has little to no relationship with their Euro product which is best in class there.
This will be more like the South Africa version.
Either they are using TrafficCast Dynaflow 3.0 with their own probes and IQ Routes or they are securing their own probe data and have or will jettison TrafficCast.
That should be HD not GD above.
It is GPRS.
Thanks folks. I have to agree. I think they are over-promising and will likely under-deliver.
The discussion made me curious, so I did a bit of searching and learned that as of 2009, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimated that when you include all Urban roads (Interstate, Other arterial, Collector and local) and Rural roads (Interstate, Other arterial, Collector and local), the total added up to 8,542,163 miles of road – and that was 2 years ago. Link to this info is:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_06.html
No idea how that correlates in real life to the maps that TomTom uses, or effective traffic coverage. But it does give a better sense of the amount of roadway in the US.
Maybe they’re counting individual lanes! 🙂