Q: Why do I need Honda FM Traffic if I already know my route?
A: Information provided by Honda FM Traffic is valuable since it lets you know of traffic conditions that may cause delays, and waste time and fuel. Moreover knowing traffic conditions ahead of time may either allow you to avoid the congestion or at least prepare for it (e.g., call ahead saying that you’ll be running late). Of all the RDS traffic services available, Honda FM Traffic is the best in its class.
Q: Why do I need Honda FM Traffic when I can listen to traffic reports for free on the radio?
A: Honda FM Traffic offers the convenience of traffic information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, when you need it. In contrast, radio traffic reports are typically available only during rush hours. Secondly, radio traffic reports are not customized to your particular route—they may provide travel times between key hot-spots, but you’re left calculating what that means for your travel. In contrast, Honda FM Traffic information is available for a wide network of roads in all covered markets and may be used by your compatible device to determine your personalized traffic-optimized route, and arrival time.
Q: Where does the Honda FM Traffic data come from?
A: Honda FM Traffic data comes from a variety of proprietary and public sources. Traffic sensors—Installed on the most-driven roadways in major markets, they collect a variety of real-time data about traffic conditions. NAVTEQ sensors—NAVTEQ owns and operates the largest private traffic-sensor network. Government sensors—NAVTEQ includes data from thousands of miles of government sensors nationwide. Toll-tags—NAVTEQ also includes data from toll-tag readers (such as EZ-Pass in New York). Commercial-based Probe Data—NAVTEQ daily collects millions of traffic data points from a large number of partnering commercial fleets. Consumer-based Probe Data—NAVTEQ also utilizes large volumes of anonymous speed data from millions of GPS-enabled consumer-navigation devices, the practice also referred to as crowd-sourcing Incidents—NAVTEQ collects data on accidents, construction and road closures from our own operations centers nationwide.
Q: What is the coverage area of Honda FM Traffic?
A: Honda FM Traffic covers 98 major cities across the U.S. and Canada, covering over 200 Million people.
Q: What format is Honda FM Traffic delivered in?
A: Honda FM Traffic is delivered over-the-air via FM-Radio Broadcast, using the Radio Data System (RDS) digital sub-channel. The format complies with the RDS-TMC Alert-C Broadcast Traffic standard, and is designed to work with compatible GPS devices. NAVTEQ partners with a number of major broadcasters nationwide to deliver the up-to-date traffic data to your device.
Q: How long does it take to broadcast all the traffic for a given city?
A: Honda FM Traffic is continuously transmitted around the clock in all covered cities. The time taken to broadcast an entire snapshot of traffic for a given city varies between 2–3 minutes in a smaller city to 5–7 minutes in a larger city like New York.