Satnav challenge 4: traffic jam

Posted on 20 Jul 2010 at 17:56

Route: TGI Friday's, Unit 6, Crawley Leisure Park, London Road, Crawley, West Sussex RH10 8LR to Redhill train station, Redstone Hill, Redhill, Surrey RH1

By the time Tim had sunk the last of his cappuccinos, Crawley was plunging close to “drivetime”. How would our satnavs cope with the first heavy traffic of the day, let alone Redhill in rush hour, which resembles downtown Delhi?

The satnavs had their traffic updates switched on, although only the TomTom boasted the ability to automatically pick the fastest route based on current jams and historical road data. Tim, meanwhile, kept his ears pinned to Radio 2, listening out for road closures amid witty banter from Steve Wright.

Bumper to bumper

Once again, the route involved making a decision between a direct A-road and an elongated motorway trip. Having unanimously plumped for the fast-flowing motorways in challenge three, all four satnavs this time decided to take the A-road. Roadmap Tim also decided to give the motorway a miss, meaning that the way the satnavs handled the traffic in both town centres was likely to be the deciding factor in this challenge.

And what of the traffic warning systems? Did they save our satnav drivers from bumper-to-bumper queues? Did they hell

Barry’s CoPilot got off to its now customary slow start, struggling to find Redhill station when entering the destination, and then once again failing to start issuing instructions until Barry was over the first roundabout. Once it did get up to speed, CoPilot then made a worrying error. Seemingly under the impression Barry was driving KITT from Knight Rider, the satnav implored him to hurdle a central reservation and perform a sharp right halfway down a dual carriageway near Gatwick Airport. In a selfish act of self-preservation, Barry ignored its advice and carried on, while the CoPilot sullenly rerouted.

CoPilot wasn’t the only satnav feeling the rush-hour strain. Priti too had problems finding Redhill station in the Nokia Ovi Maps, and then she lost the data signal just as she prepared to leave the Crawley car park, plunging her screen into darkness. It must have been a reception dead spot, because Jon too struggled to plot a route with Google Maps, proving that the free satnavs’ reliance on a reliable data signal can be a problem in both towns and rural areas.

Sarah had no such problems with TomTom’s preloaded maps, but she was having difficulties with the voice guidance. The TomTom woman kept advising her to keep right as she progressed down the A23 to Redhill, but it carried on nagging after she’d passed the slip road she was meant to be avoiding, which made the advice about as useful as those people who ask “where did you last have them?” when you’ve lost your car keys.

And what of the traffic warning systems? Did they save our satnav drivers from bumper-to-bumper queues? Did they hell. As Jon Bray sagely noted, the heavy traffic was highlighted on the Google satnav screen but “there was nothing you could do about it”. Not when all roads to Redhill are as busy as one another.

Even TomTom’s blend of historic road speed data and live traffic updates was, frankly, no better than Tim’s pair of working eyes and ears. Which explains why all our drivers finished within a few minutes of one another at Redhill, except for Nokia Ovi Maps, which had sent Priti to the wrong end of Redhill High Street after the postcode snafu, forcing her to spend another ten minutes in a traffic jam after turning round.