If your in-car GPS has support for Suna, you can get a fair idea of any lurking traffic threats on your route. If it doesn’t but you’re an Optus subscriber, you now have another option: a mobile phone traffic alerts service which derives its data from the movements of Optus customers.
The TrafficView service does pretty much what you’d expect: identifies potential traffic snarls, suggests alternative routes and sends SMS alerts for up to 30 “saved journeys” you carry out regularly.
One other big differentiator from Suna-enabled GPS devices: it isn’t free. Optus customers can trial it for 14 days, but after that you either need to pay $3.99 for a monthly subscription or 55 cents per alert for occasional alerts. In practice, if your regular commute gets traffic problems more than twice a week, the subscription will be cheaper.
I’m a non-driver so won’t be putting this to the test directly; if you try it out, tell us about the accuracy (or otherwise) in the comments.
Adam
September 9, 2010 at 5:15 PM
Isn’t this almost exactly how the Google Maps traffic layer determines congestion? That’s “free”, assuming you have data for your phone.
So, it appears that for $4/month with Optus you simply gain access to unlimited SMS alerts and saved journeys. Hmm, if I drove a lot I would probably try it, but doubt I’d stick with it.
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September 9, 2010 at 5:31 PM
So in checking this out on Google Maps on my phone versus the Optus website, the correlation seems pretty decent.
GMaps is a bit more complete in its depiction of the level of congestion (includes “carpark”), but since we don’t currently have real-time navigation within GMaps here in Aus, the SMS service may prove useful for day-to-day drivers.
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September 10, 2010 at 11:56 AM
or you could just buy a nokia (c5 for example) under $200 which includes free maps, navigation, traffic reports and a host of other options
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