Just got my new G this past weekend and still working through all the tech stuff.
I signed up for the trial period of XM last night (had Sirius on my old G and miss it already - hope the FCC approves the merger ) and then noticed today on my commute in to the office that the navi displayed info regarding traffic thru XM. It seemed to be correct in the traffic info it was giving.
I know that the XM traffic service only works in certain metro markets.
Anyone else using it? If so, what is your opinion of it?

 

I have it. I find that it isn't that accurate. Like when I am stuck in traffic it says there is no problem (and this is driving to NYC). I used it when I drove to Florida right around Christmas. It listed lots of accidents but I think there was a big delay in them showing up on the screen.

Even though I don't find it very useful I am still going to keep it (I love the gadgets) as I am going to keep XM activated.

 

I also have it and find it isn't that accurate either. I listen to my cities traffic report on the XM traffic channel for Baltimore. That is much more reliable and up-to-date.

One thing I wish my city had was the traffic flow indicator. It works for Washington DC roads, but not Baltimore. (Google maps has this now as well!) Anyone have the traffic flow in your city? How is the accuracy?

 

My bad...I just revised my search of this subject as saw a prior post with much detail.
Would welcome comments but I realize that this might covering the same ground twice!

 

Other thread: https://g35driver.com/forums/showthr...ght=xm+traffic

Again, I think those of us with good coverage (flow and accident info) are pretty happy. And it's cheap - $2/mo in addition to the XM radio fee.

 

I would have to make certain I was reading it correctly but on my commute this morning ..was showing traffic flow on my route that was accurate. Also, it showed a road construction zone not on my route but on a nearby freeway. This was in the St Louis metro area.

 

I agree, I think it totally depends on the roads you travel and the area you are in. Its great on my commute only because its on major roads and I find the traffic flow indicators and accident alerts to be pretty accurate. I think theres a map on the Navtraffic site that shows the roads near you and which ones are covered.

Obviously I dont think it will be as accurate as your local traffic radio station simply because they get accidents in a few seconds, daily commuters/listeners call in as soon as they see something and its on the air. I dont know how Navtraffic works but thats been my experience.

I like it and will keep it.

 

http://www.xmradio.com/navtraffic/market_coverage.xmc

 

the few times i've checked it in traffic in the minneapolis/st paul metro, it's was pretty accurate. I don't get stuck in rush hour traffic enough to have it work the $10/month subscription (I couldn't find anything on XM radio that I don't already have on my ipod, have podcasts of, or get's played on MPR and KFAI radio stations). If you subscribe to XM radio, it's an additional 2-3 bucks on top of that and I'd probably have paid that if XM had anything I wanted.

 

i HAVE HAD THE NAV TRAFFIC SINCE IT CAME OUT AND ITS ACCURATE AND ITS NOT ACCURATE. THE INFO ON TRAFFIC UPDATES IS USUALLY ACCURATE BUT I THINK THEY HAVE IT PROGRAMMED TO SHOW SLOW TRAFFIC ON CERTAIN HIGHWAYS AT CERTAIN TIMES FOR THE DAY EVERYDAY. I FIND MY SELF ON A STRETCH OF HIGHWAY EVERYDAY AND IT ALWAYS HAS THE RED BLINKING LINE ON IT NO MATTER HOW THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC IS MOVING. ALSO UNLESS YOU PROGRAM EV ERYWHERE YOU GO INTO THE NAV SYSTEM IT REALLY DOESNT MATTER IF YOU KNOW THERE IS AN INCIDENT. FOR INSTANCE ONCE YOUR ON THE HIGHWAY AND YOU RUN INTO TRAFFIC YOUR ALREADY IN IT. SO YOU MUST ALWAYS PLAN EVERY ROUTE PRIOR TO LEAVING..AND TO ME THATS TOO MUCH HASTLE ON A DAILY BASIS....I MEAN THE FEATURE IS NEAT YES I HAVE IMPRESSED MANY PEOPLE WITH IT..BUT THE TECHNOLOGY IS FAR FROM BEING ACCURATE/PERFECT/USEFUL..... ANYWAYS I GUESS FOR THE EXTRA WHATEVER IT IS A MONTH ITS PRETTY COOL TO HAVE IN THE CAR

I SAW AN ACCIDENT THE OTHER DAY HAPPEN AND WHEN I WAS ON MY WAY BACK LIKE5 MIN LATER IT WAS ALREADY REGISTERED IN THE NAV TRAFFIC BUT THIS DOESNT APPLY TO ALL INCIDENTS ..

 

It just saved me 1 hour and 45 minutes of traffic on my commute this morning. I normally take Rt-8 but as I was pulling out of my drive way I saw there was an accident on Rt-8 so I took RT-15 to work and make it right it, almost two hours later people from work started showing up telling me how it shut the road down and their commutes were 2 hours that morning as they crawled down 25 miles of highway past the accident.

So now I'm a believer in the alerts. My area has a lot of them, when I pull up the list, it shows me usually 100 different alerts in the CT area. We have no flow data.

But since I have Sirius and even after 2 months of XM I can honestly say XM sucks compared to Sirius... XM can't program a channel to save their life. I won't be keeping the service unless the merger goes through. Traffic service on it's own just doesn't cut it for the price and for my location and driving.

 

RT-8 and 15? Where do you work and live. It sounds like you probably close to where I used to live (until just a couple months ago) in Trumbull

 

Yup, West Hartford to Trumbull. Accident was in southern part of Seymour and backed up all the way to Waterbury.

 

Here is a question (noob again ):

What does a road with an incident in progress or general traffic, look like on the map? The other day I was on I-95 stuck in traffic. The NAV displayed this yellow overturned car for an accident, but the road itself (the highway) was not marked in any special color indicating backups.... I guess my question is: how do you identify a backed up road? Is it supposed to have some sort of marking on the road itself? - Do incident roads and flow roads appear different during heavy traffic periods?

Also, what does that the "TRAFFIC" word-icon on the upper right corner of the screen mean? It's usually green... does that mean the road is clear? Does it get any other colors to indicate different traffic conditions? If so, how do you see status of other roads that you may be planning on getting on (but not on them yet)?

 

I am happy to see you moved past the 'which button to press to save XM preset to' stage.
I have looked for some detail on this too. I saw the roadway highlighted in green and then a yellow triangle for the road work zone.
Anyone able to shed some light on this for us noobs?