Yorkmeister

I am very new to Mercedes after ditching the 3 year old A6 for my new E220 AMG. I'm loving the Merc but would like to ask: in the top right hand corner of the sat nav (bear in mind I am in the UK so this is right hand drive) there is a vehicle symbol and a small row of squares. I am assuming this is 'at a glance' traffic information but I can't find any information in the manual to help me interpret it.
If anyone could help it would be really appreciated.

pdjv

The symbols are most likely defined in literature from the satellite traffic service provider - just guessing but it's likely to be Sirius/XM in UK too - try their web site.

1guitar

Here in the USA you can get a traffic package from XMSirius for $65 a year that shows current traffic conditions in your area that show up on your Command Nav map as follows, red squares mean heavy traffic, yellow mean moderate traffic and no symbols mean no traffic, of course. It's a decent traffic indicator but not great as I have been in traffic jams that never show up on my Command Nav screen at all.

DC-IT

If you are on an active route the NAV will warn you of traffic congestion ahead and the speed of the traffic. I find this very useful.
Also in the Traffic section of the display you can check traffic on several roads in your area so you can decide if you want to reroute to another road with no/less traffic.

michael61

This is why I'm keeping Sirius. It's so worth it to avoid bad traffic.

DC-IT

In addition to the Traffic info in Command/NAV, I also rely on Google Map Traffic on my Nexus 5 cell which is mounted on my windshield.

Hopefully in the near future car manufacturers will start incorporating Google Maps with real time traffic info.

Yorkmeister

Actually the traffic updates are provided by TomTom in the UK and I think the rest of Europe which are probably no better than what you guys get on the other side of the water.
I understand the actual 'on route' symbols, but the symbols I am talking about actually appear in the top right of the screen and vary in quantity and colour. They are small car symbols and go upto about 5 and are almost as though the are demonstrating or displaying the signal strength of the received traffic data, but I can't find anything online or in the handbook to substantiate this, hence my reason for turning to the forum.
No worries if answers aren't forthcoming and thanks to those that have replied so far.

michael61

I sometimes have Waze open. I sit the iPhone in the cup holder and run a USB cable into the center storage console - running a gps app on the iPhone sucks power.

My main motivation for keeping Waze open is the crowd sourced police reports. I've avoid more than a few speed traps because of Waze.

jmatero

Are you referring to the cellphone reception bars?