Thanks for your reply, I am suprised that there has not been more replies since the TM products were widely used. So if there are any other dissapointed TM owners out there, please post you solution to this problem.

No, these are portable devices that pick up signals from transmitters mounted on gantries and bridges, they have a voice announcement that warns of delays on the road you are are on plus roads from any immediate junctions.

Thanks. I have (somewhere) some old TM units that have various coloured LED's telling you of a jam so many miles away....red serious, amber then green everything OK etc. They are about the age of the old YQ units. Guess it must be them then.

Thanks anyway for reasurring me!

Yes, thats the one. It is a very good low cost warning system for traffic problems and there does not seem to be an equivalent device.

I have not got a smart phone and I don't really want to go to the expense of a GPS device.

I will just have to hope someone come up with a solution.

I had one of those colour monitors that utilised this traffic data from trafficmaster mounted in my HGV a few years a go for about 3 years & it was the best piece of kit to avoid traffic jams i've ever come across. I couldn't be bothered listening to the radio traffic reports.

It went kaput though a while back and you couldn't replace the colour monitor as they stopped selling them and then I found out they were switching the information transmission off so didn't persue it although beforehand I did nearly import a clone from China, I thought that highly of them, but thought I might lose my money so didn't bother in the end.

I think after the fitting of the these massive traffic information boards on the motorway, the need has become less pressing but I would still buy one tomorrow if they reversed the decision to stop transmitting and started selling the colour monitors again.

Nothing currently on the market comes close to the simplicity and ease of use of these systems.

Edited by PatrickO on 14/01/2012 at 16:27

''Does the Garmin provide a voice only warning of traffic holdups?''

Not as far as i'm aware, but i haven't looked at the market for this type of thing for about 2 years.

Garmin's T model satnavs (eg 1490t which i have) have free for life traffic, that why i bought Garmin instead of TT.

Garmins do have a facility you can check the country for traffic problems, in ever increasing radius, the traffic icon will turn orange then red if you have problems en route.

Not a patch on the Trafficmaster, but then i don't think anything ever will be, none that i'm aware of have are capable of whizzing round half the country via the screen in 20 seconds to check which of several routes to use.

Edited by gordonbennet on 08/06/2012 at 17:20