Thread: Garmin units directories,characteristics and files.

I think that Floating Car Data is only [or mainly] collected from active mobile phones on arterial roads, before being analysed and then used by the traffic providers to be sent to TMC receivers or traffic connected PNDs and SmartPhones.

G'day dd,
As far as i know they don't, but i'm not sure. I believe that it only comes from gsm phones. FCD can also stand for Floating Cellular Data. I've had to resort to Wikipedia [cough, cough], sorry:

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FCD comes from Navigon for example:

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FCD are being collected for NAVIGON to enrich the quality of its Traffic services and to build up a historical database with Traffic flows through Europe. It will also enable other parties to analyze the traffic situation. This anonymous data is used with companies like INRIX who are NAVIGON’s traffic partner.

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Garmin 3D Traffic Live-kick off in UK in cooperation with INRIX®: The United Kingdom will be the first market where Garmin will introduce the new technology. This is expected to be on Dezl 760

Thank you all

I have it in .System in my Nuvi 34xx. Inside a file probe.bin
Creation date:‎‎31 ‎December ‎2019 lol

Interesting is the linked article by Caty on the Navigon App for smartphones:

GPS navigation provider NAVIGON issued the latest version of its iPhone software MobileNavigator with a number of new features, among them Live Weather, Clever Parking and Destination Display. Not mentioned in their press release, NAVIGON also uses the application to gather floating car data (FCD) information from its worldwide user base.

According to NAVIGON, customers have the choice to opt out, in reality it is a bit more tricky since the customer can only say Yes on the first screen when the new application loads and then choose to opt out via a well hidden sub menu (More > Options > Optimise). In addition, it is unlikely that the average consumer really understands what is “Floating Car Data” and how it could potentially impact its phone bill.

This seems to imply that FCD is a 'transmission' that adds to the cost of the user's mobile phone bill when used in conjunction with the app. Not so with ordinary users, i would have thought. But yes so, in regard to the data then analyzed, algorothised and ultimately regenerated back to an active subscriber via his GSM data provider. My [uncertain] understanding is that FCD info is not normally a cost imposition in itself being that it is [mainly] obtained anonymously from the positions and relative movements of millions of GSM phones worldwide to determine the traffic flows/delays in specific areas on specific major roads. Other methods for input of FCD such as GPS receivers in fleet vehicle which wirelessly transmit data obviously do have a cost because that data requires transmission. Cellular/mobile phones do not as such transmit data afaik. The service provider always has the rough position and movement of each phone and this anonymous data is what is used by the traffic provider after it's received from the mobile service providers and duly processed to refine it.

I suspect that the .bin files in the folder named FCD in later Garmin devices are not 'current' as in obtained via the Traffic Receiver on the spot, but are historic to assist with traffic trends, but that's an uneducated guess.
As to the original question, do the 'connected' nulink devices transmit (possibly at a cost to their owners) the FCD? - I guess that we dunno yet do we ......

Please, little attention!

If anybody had successful update of map by MapUpdater or Express with replacing a gmapprom.img from device to a gmapsupp.img on empty SD please give me some infos. I want know about new gma and unl files. Where are they and which name have? No context is interesting! Thanks!

I have a US 1450LM [only 2GiB on board] which needs to use a mircoSD to get the full NA. This shows the files in the Map folder [not gmapsupp, gmappupdate is used as the file name]:



In the Garmin folder is also a zero byte file unchanged from an earlier update named gmappupdate.gsd: