desirusso

Does anyone know how this works? Every time I press the button it does a search for a traffic station but never finds one. Do I have to have it programmed in my list of stations or what? Any info would be helpful

rxdriver

Radio stations can tag their station as "giving traffic reports" using RDS.
The Traffic button will seek and find any stations with this tag.

Because it's up to the station to declare it themselves, it can mean just about anything. If you give a traffic report once an hour during rush hour, you can say you have traffic reports.

HarrierAWD

I have not found any radio station ID itself as a traffic station in the U.S. And the RDS text is usually something useless like "Cool 105.1" or "Jamming 101" etc.

The TRAF button is more useful in Japan where many stations ID and broadcast traffic reports - some in digital format that the NAV system can use.

rxdriver

The stations in the Chicago area have been slow to adopt RDS in general, but of those that have, many of them call themselves "Traffic" stations.
As I implied before, the actual traffic reports are often few and far between on some stations, but they're tagged nonetheless.

Most of the stations with RDS are pretty good about supplying the song title and artist name during the song. Of course, between songs, it just sits on the station's call letters or nickname.

steevr

I've noticed the same thing in the Chicago area within the past year. All 6 stations on my FM presets boradcast their name, the artist name and the song.

Sounds like they're trying to be like XM. I've got the XM Roady 2 in my RX and love the Chicago Traffic station. They even give you average MPH on each of the expressways.