Real-time traffic not so real-time?

[jamieb]

I've had my MS for almost a month now and one thing that I've noticed is that the traffic on the main map does not seem to be very accurate. Traffic on major highways (I assume based mostly on the feed from CalTrans here in California) seems reasonably up to date, but on city streets there are areas where there's often a red or yellow dotted line with no one in sight. For example a surface street intersection near me that is usually heavily congested during rush hour shows a red dotted line even late at night. On my just-sold Infiniti with XM-based traffic data, the traffic data seemed much more accurate. Do the surface street markings simply represent historical areas of congestion unrelated to real-time conditions? If that's the case, the traffic mapping is a lot less useful. Is there a way to force a refresh? Here's hoping that Tesla will integrate Waze data into their real-time nav system in 6.0...

 

[ElSupreme]

I've had my MS for almost a month now and one thing that I've noticed is that the traffic on the main map does not seem to be very accurate. Traffic on major highways (I assume based mostly on the feed from CalTrans here in California) seems reasonably up to date, but on city streets there are areas where there's often a red or yellow dotted line with no one in sight. For example a surface street intersection near me that is usually heavily congested during rush hour shows a red dotted line even late at night. On my just-sold Infiniti with XM-based traffic data, the traffic data seemed much more accurate. Do the surface street markings simply represent historical areas of congestion unrelated to real-time conditions? If that's the case, the traffic mapping is a lot less useful. Is there a way to force a refresh? Here's hoping that Tesla will integrate Waze data into their real-time nav system in 6.0...

It is somewhat accurate. At intersections people end up stopped completely for periods of time. If enough people get stopped it shows red. This has a secondary benefit to Google in that their trip time calculation can modify based on speed limit and congestion, without having to account for traffic signals.

Basically if it shows red at an intersection it means that a significant portion of the traffic ends up getting stopped, even if you happen to fly through on a green. It truly is congestion, and unmoving traffic, if only intermittently.

 

[jive_devil]

The real-time traffic seems to be pretty good down here in SoCal. I think it just depends on where Google is spooling the traffic info from, which may not be the same from region to region.

Relatedly, I was playing with Google maps the other day and noticed that some of the hazard alerts were ID'd as "reported through Waze." I suppose that means we're seeing some Waze integration into Google traffic already.

 

[Gizmotoy]

The real-time traffic seems to be pretty good down here in SoCal. I think it just depends on where Google is spooling the traffic info from, which may not be the same from region to region.

Their biggest source of data is Android phones, so the higher the concentration of smartphones, the better the traffic data.

 

[jamieb]

It is somewhat accurate. At intersections people end up stopped completely for periods of time. If enough people get stopped it shows red. This has a secondary benefit to Google in that their trip time calculation can modify based on speed limit and congestion, without having to account for traffic signals.

Basically if it shows red at an intersection it means that a significant portion of the traffic ends up getting stopped, even if you happen to fly through on a green. It truly is congestion, and unmoving traffic, if only intermittently.

I get that, but I suppose my question is one of latency and refresh rate. My map is showing areas of congestion late at night when there is absolutely no traffic, so if there's congestion, say, during morning rush hour, does the marker for congestion stay there for the entire day?

 

[Kipernicus]

I think there's two issues with traffic refresh:
1. The latency of data getting into Google's servers
2. Refreshing our display to get the latest from the server

For #1, definitely there are times when real conditions change so fast the data collection can't keep up. 5pm is the prime example. All maps (car, phone, website) will be limited by a delay here.
For #2, make sure you are on ver 5.6 (or was it 5.8?), because before that I noticed exactly what you describe - morning traffic conditions hanging around on the map when I get into the car to drive home.
Since 5.6 it seems to do a pretty good job of refreshing, but yea, I wish there was a way to manually force a refresh.

 

[jerry33]

Since 5.6 it seems to do a pretty good job of refreshing, but yea, I wish there was a way to manually force a refresh.

Try going from map view to picture view and back. That is supposed to force a refresh. I can't tell because in DFW it's mostly useless. I've yet to see any correlation with anything other than a time of day guess at the traffic conditions.

 

[Kraken]

I've been driving around the Bay Area and sacramento area for over six months without it seeming off... Ene recently I've seen it update fairly timely

 

[Robert.Boston]

I agree that the side-street data is suspect, but it's the same data reported on the Google Maps site. It's a Google problem, not Tesla.

Use Waze (yes, I know, also Google, but soon we'll all be a subsidiary of Google).

 

[ElSupreme]

I get that, but I suppose my question is one of latency and refresh rate. My map is showing areas of congestion late at night when there is absolutely no traffic, so if there's congestion, say, during morning rush hour, does the marker for congestion stay there for the entire day?

No, congestion doesn't linger on the Google data. But they are displaying transit time, not traffic. Which is a more accurate reflection of how long it will take you to drive that section anyway. What happens is most likely the untraveled road had in the last 15 minutes (or whatever their window of time they monitor is) they had 3 cars go through. And probably 2 of them came to a stop. Thus the intersection stays red.

They can't know if there are cars present at any given time, as they don't monitor traffic directly. So they use this sort of data. And it still reflects 'transit time' through a certain area. Which is really what is important.

 

[boerlin]

beside the traffic information, does navigation suggest alternative routes, when there is a traffic jam or does it just show the jam and you'll be stuck in it?

 

[Gizmotoy]

beside the traffic information, does navigation suggest alternative routes, when there is a traffic jam or does it just show the jam and you'll be stuck in it?

It just shows the jam. If you want to reroute, it's up to you to do that manually.

Note that both Navigon and Google Maps support traffic-based rerouting, so cross your fingers we get something like this in the big navigation update we've been told to expect sometime in Q1.

 

[Tempus]

It just shows the jam. If you want to reroute, it's up to you to do that manually.

Note that both Navigon and Google Maps support traffic-based rerouting, so cross your fingers we get something like this in the big navigation update we've been told to expect sometime in Q1.

yeah, that's probably the fix i want most. I've had that in my Garmin for years, and the data is right there in the google maps.

 

[Ole]

The traffic has been working fine for me, but yesterday I ended up in a 5 km solid pack after a collision on the main road. And the display showed the road in nice optimistic green the whole time.

 

[Robert.Boston]

The traffic has been working fine for me, but yesterday I ended up in a 5 km solid pack after a collision on the main road. And the display showed the road in nice optimistic green the whole time.

And my wife wonders why I always have Waze running on my iPhone even though I've got this huge screen and am driving places I know.

 

[ecarfan]

My wife and I are big fans of Waze and we use it in our Model S.

 

[Gizmotoy]

The traffic has been working fine for me, but yesterday I ended up in a 5 km solid pack after a collision on the main road. And the display showed the road in nice optimistic green the whole time.

Given that Waze is sharing traffic data with Google, theoretically we should be able to benefit from that without running Waze explicitly. Clearly Google still has some integration to do.

 

[ken830]

OP should try running Waze app through the same intersection several times per day, every day, for a few weeks and see if Google Maps picks up some better data for that area.

 

[PaulusdB]

That's silly. Nothing currently beats Waze in inhabited area's.

 

[leonari]

I really hope we get an Appstore someday. So many cool apps could run on that screen...The sky is the limit. Waze would be up my list alongside spotify