Troubleshooting

Most of the time the app will give you alerts based on your current direction of travel, but at some intersections you may get alerts that aren’t relevant.

For example, you are heading towards an intersection where, if you turn left, you will run into a traffic delay. You are planning to turn right, but the app doesn’t know which way you are going to turn, so it gives you an alert about the congestion on the other route anyway.

You can configure your alerts in the Settings menu of the app.

The solution to this problem depends on the type of phone you have and whether you are connected to a hands-free kit / car stereo.

Run through the following steps to find and fix the issue:

Step 1. Check that the app is running and your phone is not on silent mode.

If you have restarted your phone, you will need to open the app again. It will not automatically start running when you turn on your phone.

Step 2. Make sure that your phone is not connected to your car entertainment system.

In the settings menu of the app is a “Test Alert” button that you can use to make sure that you can hear spoken alerts.

Press the “Test Alert” button. If you can hear a message loud and clear skip to Step 6.

Step 3. Check the volume level on your phone.

To do this, press the “Test Alert” button and while a test alert is playing, turn up the volume controls on the phone to adjust the volume level.

If you can hear the message loud and clear, skip to Step 5. If you can’t hear a message or it is not very loud, proceed to Step 4.

Step 4. If you have an iPhone, make sure that “Alert via Handsfree” is turned off and then try the test button.

If this setting is turned on it is likely that the audio alert will be played through the phone's ear piece instead of the phone's loud speaker.

If you can hear a message loud and clear skip to Step 6.

Step 5. Make sure that your device has Text-to-Speech enabled.

This is located in your phone’s settings menu, not in the app menu, and will vary between devices.

Android devices can download the Google text-to-speech engine if you do not have anything installed and iPhones should have Siri enabled.

Once you have this installed, repeat Steps 2 and 3. If you still cannot hear anything contact TrafficTasapp@stategrowth.tas.gov.au

Step 6. If you can now hear messages from the phone loud speaker and you do not connect your phone to a car stereo or hands-free device then your setup is complete.

If you need to connect to a hands-free device or car stereo, do this now before continuing with Step 7.

For iPhone users who want to connect to a hands-free device or car stereo, also turn on the “Alert via Hands free” setting.

Step 7. Some connected devices cannot be detected by the app and this usually depends on whether the connected device supports Bluetooth audio streaming or just hands-free calls. Press the “Test Alert” button.

If you cannot hear anything through the hands-free device, check if the alert is instead playing through the phone ear piece.

If this is the case, iPhone users can turn off the “Alert via Handsfree” setting to force the audio through the phone loud speaker.

Android users will need to contact TrafficTasapp@stategrowth.tas.gov.au to diagnose the problem.

There are a few reasons why delays may not appear on the map or why you might not get a spoken alert.

If that particular delay is normal for that time of day and day of the week, the app won’t show an additional delay or broadcast an alert.

Only delays that are greater than expected for that time of day are displayed on the map.

For example, it takes longer to cross the Tasman Bridge at 8:30 am each weekday than it does at 11:00 am, because of increased traffic. This delay happens every day, and most regular commuters already allow for the extra time it takes.

You won’t get an alert for this regular delay.

If however there’s a crash at 8:30 am and the traffic is delayed for longer than normal during the peak, you should get an alert.

Delays need to be at least 2 minutes longer than normal before TrafficTAS will broadcast spoken alerts.

If the delays are outside of our Bluetooth coverage area, we cannot report them on the map.

There may also be times when we temporarily lose coverage due to power outages or communication issues.

If you think you should have received an alert, send a bug report through the app's Troubleshooting menu and provide details of the time and location.

The bug report will attach a log file that allows us to check if you should have heard an alert message, and system data so we can track down the reason for the bug.

If you use the app to listen for alerts and leave it running in the background it shouldn’t use much battery power. In background mode the app will not use GPS or update the map. The Android version will also turn off Bluetooth scanning if the phone's motion sensor detects that you are not driving.

Navigation mode uses a lot of battery power, as it keeps the screen awake and unlocked and will use the phone’s GPS to show your location on the map.

It will also download data to keep the map information up to date and uses Bluetooth to listen for broadcast messages.

Most smartphones list information about the battery use of each app in their settings.