Traffic, finally the savior of the PND business??

The PND guys are worried. OK, maybe for a lot of reasons, but I want to address one in particular. It's the the big one. Who needs a PND anyway? Stay with me here....

Back in the day, PNDs were crazy expensive, north of US$1000. That is a lot of cash, and for 1000 bucks you REALLY needed to have one. At Magellan, we looked at potential buyers in three camps:
1) Road Warriors (pros on the road to unknown places)
2) Safe-and-Secure Seniors (well-off 50+ers that like to travel)
3) Gadget Freaks (at least the well-off ones)

Price clearly was the biggest barrier to adoption. You really needed to NEED one, and even if you did, price was still an problem. All of the big players figured that as the price dropped, the volumes would pick up. It was basic economics, and of the most part it holds true.

But here's the issue. As the base PNDs are now in the US$100 range, the industry is facing a nasty fact; not everybody wants one. The adaption curve is leveling off before the industry expected it to. Why? A lot of people just don't see the need, at any price. Their typical argument is, I know my way to work, how to get to my friends house, and I just don't get lost all that often. And, that's true for a lot of people. Maybe they would use it once a month, but that does not justify a purchase.

Here is were traffic comes in. Now I know it's been around for a while, and I think it's been mis-marketed and mis-implemented.

In the past, and currently, all traffic solutions were based on generating alternative routes and active guidance on an entered route. That's not smart, for these reasons:
1) Most driving in traffic situations is COMMUTING.
2) Most people know their commute destinations and origins.
3) Most people commute at a regular, predicable time.
4) Most people expect traffic and delays, and just need an overview of what to expect.

I use a Garmin Nuvi 755 with MSN Traffic, and it is a great device. But I HATE having to enter in my work/home destination twice a day, and then have to listen to it give me (annoying) voice directions to a place I could drive to with my eyes closed. All this to get traffic information. It's a turn-off.

What I REALLY want is a device that knows (or better, LEARNS) my typical drives, and then calculates traffic info in the background. It does NOT need to give me turn-by-turn guidance, but give me audibles on traffic and suggestions if it gets really bad, and there is a clearly better route. My Nuvi is taking baby-steps in this regard. For instance, it will give traffic details without an active route in the road ahead. But only on that road. If you turn off if it, you could get blind-sided.

It's part of the philosophy of telling the driver something they did not know when they go in their car. Connected PNDs will do this someday and drive this value proposition to new levels. But for now, traffic is the only game in town. This is where a lot of coding activity should be taking place.

And then they need to get the word out. Marketing the PND as way to 'find a place' is tapped out. Everybody that would have bought into that pitch already has, and currently own PND. Now it's time to move on to the next untapped group. The traffic data in most markets is of sufficient quality to make a decent product. Time to build and sell it!