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Why no traffic information for UK users
- Thread starter daneoni
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I know, it's stupid isn't it?
The UK probably has more 'traffic' than the USA! If anything, we'd have more use for it.
The UK probably has more 'traffic' than the USA! If anything, we'd have more use for it.
I completely agree, where is it? Couldn't RAC release an App or Apple UK speak with the roads agency. Just try something...
The UK has to be so much easier to manage than the US. There's only 60 million for a start, and about a 100th of the road millage available.
The UK has to be so much easier to manage than the US. There's only 60 million for a start, and about a 100th of the road millage available.
Yes, this is actually one of those legitimate "don't blame Apple" moments! It's Google that need to be beaten up over this.
Visit www.google.com/maps in your browser on your PC/Mac. You'll notice that there's a couple of buttons called "Traffic" and "Street View" available to you whenever you're hovered over the US. They both disappear when you move the map over to the UK.
Very annoying, and I wish there was a place for me to kick up a bit of a stink about it...
Not sure that a TomTom app would solve the problem either. I know all the big GPS device manufacturers have had nothing but problems trying to get TrafficMaster to license their service/data out to them. There must be other providers to get data from!
Visit www.google.com/maps in your browser on your PC/Mac. You'll notice that there's a couple of buttons called "Traffic" and "Street View" available to you whenever you're hovered over the US. They both disappear when you move the map over to the UK.
Very annoying, and I wish there was a place for me to kick up a bit of a stink about it...
Not sure that a TomTom app would solve the problem either. I know all the big GPS device manufacturers have had nothing but problems trying to get TrafficMaster to license their service/data out to them. There must be other providers to get data from!
Ah...nothing like corporate politics to stifle progress/innovation and screw consumers over.
Because you guys drive on the wrong side of the road?
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
No.
Perhaps it's simply because Google haven't negotiated a deal with any one provider of traffic details yet?
The Highways Agency pays a private company called TiS (Traffic Information Services) to collect and process traffic data from the motorway and trunk road network. They have a website at www.trafficengland.com which shows current delays on England's roads (there are similar services for Scotland and Wales too). They also display information about roadworks, incidents, future events, current speeds on Motorways, access to CCTV cameras, and current variable message sign and matrix signal settings. Best thing is, delays are colour coded by severity and shown on a map - just like Google does in the USA.
All the information is collected from the roadside in real-time and is provided free of charge to anyone who wants it. It's all run from a purpose-built facility called the National Traffic Control Centre near Birmingham.
If Google wanted to set up a traffic information service for the UK, nobody is stopping them. They just have to go and ask for the information and it will be given to them on a live feed, at no charge. It's part of the terms and conditions of the contract that the Highways Agency won't charge organisations for the data, as that would take revenue from the likes of TrafficMaster who do have subscription services, and effectively the government would be putting them out of business.
My guess is that there are so many other providers out there that it's not cost-effective for Google to spend time developing the service... Even though they obviously already have a model in the USA, the data is most likely in different formats and from different sources, so there probably isn't a great deal of commonality they could share between the 2 countries. But if there's a will, there's certainly a way!
I tend to use the traffic england site to decide whether to leave work by looking at the current motorway information page, which shows the speeds between every motorway junctions and links to the CCTV cameras so you can see just how bad the jams are before you set off!
All the information is collected from the roadside in real-time and is provided free of charge to anyone who wants it. It's all run from a purpose-built facility called the National Traffic Control Centre near Birmingham.
If Google wanted to set up a traffic information service for the UK, nobody is stopping them. They just have to go and ask for the information and it will be given to them on a live feed, at no charge. It's part of the terms and conditions of the contract that the Highways Agency won't charge organisations for the data, as that would take revenue from the likes of TrafficMaster who do have subscription services, and effectively the government would be putting them out of business.
My guess is that there are so many other providers out there that it's not cost-effective for Google to spend time developing the service... Even though they obviously already have a model in the USA, the data is most likely in different formats and from different sources, so there probably isn't a great deal of commonality they could share between the 2 countries. But if there's a will, there's certainly a way!
I tend to use the traffic england site to decide whether to leave work by looking at the current motorway information page, which shows the speeds between every motorway junctions and links to the CCTV cameras so you can see just how bad the jams are before you set off!
Funny as this sounds; the uk gets far far more traffic than the USA. In fact, when is there ever NOT traffic? I checked the previous posters site at 10pm at night and there were roadworks everywhere in london.
GoogleMaps getting UK traffic updates may be so much that it would overload the google servers and break the internet! ;D
I checked the previous posters site at 10pm at night and there were roadworks everywhere in london.GoogleMaps getting UK traffic updates may be so much that it would overload the google servers and break the internet! ;D
thats because london during the day would be a nightmare (more than it is now) to have roadworks in
you mean like apple's iphone 3g activation process?
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (16GB, 2.0.2 JB'd): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)
Do you get turn-by-turn driving directions? We don't get those here in Tokyo, presumably because the streets are so ****ed up ...
GoogleMaps doesn't seem to support a lot of things outside the US. Hopefully someday they will.
daneoni said:
Do you get turn-by-turn driving directions? We don't get those here in Tokyo, presumably because the streets are so ****ed up ...
GoogleMaps doesn't seem to support a lot of things outside the US. Hopefully someday they will.