Traffic on your route, coloured from green to red
Premium
Where on your route does the jam start, and how far does it reach? With the traffic button in the cockpit, DriveBattle colours the route by the current traffic flow: green for free flow, then yellow, orange and red for a jam. Colouring is a Premium feature. The data comes from TomTom.
Premium: colouring the route by traffic. Traffic reports and the jam warning are not part of it. During the beta everything is unlocked.
How to switch it on
In the cockpit button column there is a button with a traffic symbol, called “Live traffic” in the app. One tap switches the colouring on, a second tap switches it off. It is off by default. Without Premium the tap opens the Premium screen.
What the colours mean
The colour follows the ratio of current speed to free-flow speed. The ratio counts, not the absolute speed: a 30 zone with free flow stays green. From 85 % of free-flow speed the route is green, from 60 % yellow, from 35 % orange, below that red. A spot reported as closed is shown red. The info button in the cockpit opens the legend.
How current the colours are
The server tells the app how often to reload. The default is 5 minutes, and the server can change it. A jam that builds while you drive shows up in the colours after the next refresh. If the route changes, for example after a recalculation, the colours of the old route do not appear on the new one. The app colours the new route at the next refresh.
Where the colouring has limits
The server samples the route about every 700 m, and at larger gaps on long routes so the sample points reach the destination. Between two sample points the colour of the last one applies. A short jam between two points can therefore be missing. If there is no data for the whole route, it keeps its usual colour.
Pause and outage
If the server pauses the queries, for example because the quota at the traffic service is used up, the app clears the colours. Old colours never stay on screen, because they would show a situation nobody measures any more. The switch stays on, and the app resumes colouring by itself after the pause.
On the car map too
If colouring is switched on on the phone, the Android Auto map shows the same colours on the route. You operate the switch on the phone.
What is transmitted for it
With the switch off, no query happens. With it on, the DriveBattle server asks TomTom about single points of your planned route, at most 60, about every 700 m, as coordinates. TomTom receives neither your IP address nor an account ID. What is sent is the planned route, not your actual position and no recorded ride. Answers stay in server memory for at most 5 minutes. The privacy policy describes this in the section on traffic data.
Premium and what stays free
Colouring is part of Premium, and the server checks that too. Traffic reports as markers, the cockpit warning, the voice call and the ranking of routes by travel time are not. During the beta everything is unlocked. After that Premium costs money, the purchase runs through Google Play and Google Play shows the price. This page describes the Android app.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I colour my route by traffic?
- Yes, with the traffic button in the cockpit. The route turns green for free flow and red for a jam, with yellow and orange between. Colouring is part of Premium.
- What do the route colours mean?
- They show the ratio of current speed to free-flow speed: green from 85 %, yellow from 60 %, orange from 35 %, red below that.
- How often does the colouring update?
- The server sets the interval. The default is 5 minutes.
- Does TomTom see where I am?
- TomTom receives single points of your planned route, at most 60, only with the switch on, and without an IP address or account ID. Your actual position and recorded rides do not go to TomTom.
- Does the jam warning stay without Premium?
- Yes. Markers, the cockpit warning and the voice call are not part of Premium.