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scotthayes

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jun 6, 2007
1,605
53
Planet Earth
Good old BBC putting the licence payers money to good use.

Black cab Vs. Sat-Nav

For any one who has not used a black cab in London, the drivers are well known for their 'knowledge' of London. Just to get a licence takes 2-3 years of learning the roads of London.

Oh, and the reason for the sarcastic comment at the top of this post, I've just bought a Tom Tom GO 720 and it got beat by some bloke called Andy in his cab.

Guess now there will be a flood of post about how a Sat-Nav system sent you the wrong way down a one way street or through a 15ft deep river.
 
If the traffic avoidance system is the standard over the air system used throughout europe (namely, TMC), it is limited to major roads only. This would be the M and A roads in the UK and maybe some of the major roads in London. If it was simply busy in london it wouldn't give you another recommendation. THat's one of the major weaknesses of the current public TMC system.

Interestingly the next generation of TomTom GPS devices will use what it is called HD traffic. THis uses the signals sent by cell phones to determine whether cars on a particular road are standing still or moving abnormally slowly. Its also real time. With that kind of development it would be interesting to see if the cabby would still win.
 
Always amazed by the knowledge of London's cabbies, but there is room for technology; I once stumped a cabbie with a partial address from my memory, luckily while stopped at red light I was able to fire-up Google Earth find an open WiFi signal and show him my push-pin marker:)
 
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