BMW brings Real Time Traffic Information (RTTI) to drivers

BMW is to offer Real Time Traffic Information (RTTI) as a free service with BMW Professional navigation system, and as an option without.

Technology has made the driver’s life much easier in recent years, but there’s not much to make life easier when you get stuck at the back of a huge traffic jam. But BMW’s announcement that it will be offering Real Time Traffic Information (RTTI) in its cars will help. A lot.

But, you may well say, what’s new about RTTI? After all, TMC (Traffic Message Centre) has been available for years and is a big help. Which is true, but nowhere near as good as RTTI promises to be.

The problem with TMC is that it’s radio-based and often very slow to update. And there’s nothing more frustrating than arriving at the back of a ten mile jam only to be warned about it fifteen minutes later as TMC updates.

But with RTTI, the information is much more accurate and much quicker. And instead of being radio-based, RTTI uses  TPEG (Transport Protocol Expert Group) through the GSM mobile phone network, so information is delivered in real time.

The traffic jam information gets shown on the SatNav map and shows how traffic is flowing, and it gets updated every 3 minutes so there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be able to avoid just about every irritating jam on your route.

Not only that, but the RTTI monitors traffic away from your route so it can also recommend alternative routes based on traffic flow, which means if you turn off when warned about an impending jam on your route you’re not going to end up in an even bigger mess as a result.

The BMW RTTI system covers all major road networks and motorways in the UK as well as in Europe and, even if you don’t get it as a freebie on the ‘BMW Professional navigation system and Bluetooth telephone preparation with telematics’ basis, you can still get it as an option.

The only problem is, you’ll have one less excuse for being late for your meeting.