Best time would be to go through it after 10pm, when traffic would be very light then. It would be best to go on weekends when traffic would generally be lighter. Weekdays in general are times not to going through Atlanta, if you can help it. Truckers report that these are the times to avoid. The XM radio traffic reports are too broad and lack enough detail for NJ, in my experience.The period from 4:30pm to 7pm are also times when you might need not want to be there, as traffic would be heavy from people who are trying to get home. There is no substitute for local knowledge, and I have found that the local radio station is generally the most helpful. If I check the traffic cam and see no unusual traffic, then I ignore the reported incident. The web-based system may say there is an incident on I-80. For example, before I leave work, I check the web-based system. I found that I have to incorporate multiple sources of info just to get some idea of traffic problems. I use the XM radio audio traffic reporting, a local NJ radio station (101.5), web-based traffic cameras like this:Īnd web-based traffic reporting provided by Smart Route Systems: I have found every traffic service to be flawed, incomplete, and sometimes just plain wrong. I commute in northern NJ in the greater NYC metro area. Thats my only gripe with the unit so far. I have used it in 4 different vehicles all with somewhat poor performance. I do find the internal XM FM transmitter to be somewhat poor when compared to a normal XM device. But if you experience lackluster performance of the system, know your not the only one. Since the service is so cheap and on a per month basis, I recommend everyone trying if for themselves vs using my review for a deciding factor. So that is what about 5% accuracy at best? I am going to try the service 1 more month to see if my experience has been a huge fluke but I dont have high hopes. I have come across 10 wrecks/traffic jams where it showed green/clear traffic. So to date, it has reported 37 wrecks/slow traffic that I have found to be true 2 times. Not an hour later and 3 miles of traffic at a standstill behind it. I can understand a new wreck taking 10-20mins to get into the system. Then there are the 10+ wrecks, traffic jams I have encountered that were not reported on the service. After about the 3rd rerouting on surface streets that took an hour to travel what is normally a 20min interstate drive, I started ignoring it and discovered no traffic or traffic jams. While I am not blaming Garmin for this, just reporting how useless this service is our area. In the atl area, after a wreck there are always vehicles on the side of the road for 1-2hours waiting on wreckers, clean up, writing reports etc. When I reach the scene of the supposed accident, nothing, no signs of cleanup etc. Now granted sometimes the system is slow to update etc but 2 out of 37 times?!?! I mean sometimes it will show a new wreck 2-3 miles ahead of me with slowing traffic. Yes that means out of the 37 times it has shown a traffic problem, 2 times I actually saw a traffic problem. To date it has been correct 2 times out of 37!!!!!!. I dont commute in traffic so that is of little use to me and I depend on traffic reporting to show me the unexpected delays, wrecks, back ups etc in the Metro Atlanta area. well that is expected as that is the case every day during those time periods. During rush hour it shows all interstates slow(yellow) or stop&go(red). I have made a note to myself to pay attention to every traffic report, reroute it does and determine if Traffic really was that bad etc. Since XM Traffic was only $4 more a month, decided to try it. I was excited about using XM with the Unit to replace a broken XM receiver that I had on the bike. I recently bought a Garmin 2730 a few months ago. Thought I would give a report on using the 2730 with XM Traffic in the Atlanta area for any potential buyers in this area.
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