Frequently Asked Questions
Your experiences and feedback have helped us and played a big part in our redesign of our new BBC Travel News site, introducing new functionality and optimising the way we present our information to you. We are still keen to hear about what you think about our new design, together with any suggestions for further improvements - let us know.
- What's new?
- What's not changed?
- Why did you build a new version of BBC Travel News?
- How do I use the map?
- What do the Traffic Jam Cameras show?
- Other questions and feedback
What's new:
- Updated design, with wider pages and larger text
- Improved navigation, allowing movement between adjacent geographic areas
- Interactive mapping, which can be minimised if you prefer the text incident list
- Clearer timestamping of incidents
- Traffic jam cams showing frequently updated still images of traffic conditions on motorways and trunk roads
- The text incident list has been updated to improve readability, and is synchronised with the map
- Local weather forecast from the BBC Weather Centre for the next 6 hours from now
- Backend improvements to our data-handling system to categorise data, and speed up the reception and delivery of data to the site
What's not changed:
- Our comprehensive traffic and travel information remains at the core of the service, updated around the clock
- The text list remains, and you can hide/minimise the map, to put the functionality of the site back to the way it used to be (if you want that!)
- We've made the redesign as subtle as possible, in order to retain the things you've told us you like about the existing site
- Our door-to-door journey planner, powered by Transport Direct, remains but has been made more prominent
Why did you build a new version of BBC Travel News:
- Firstly, to update the design to take advantage of the BBC's wider page layout, introduce maps across the site for the first time, and make some basic improvements to the presentation of our information
- Secondly, to improve the data-handling processes behind the scenes, to allow us to separate the data into more useful groups, and reduce the time it takes for the data to reach you
- Thirdly, to integrate traffic jam cameras (where available) into the main BBC Travel News website alongside our incident data
How do I use the map:
- To reduce loading times, the map will only load and become active after clicking the initial prompt
- Using the tabs at the top of the map allows you to filter the information you want to see in the map, and the text list below
- The number of incidents belonging to each information type is displayed when hovering over each of the tabs at the top of the map
- You can show or hide the map to suit your own preference
- The map and text list are synchronised, so clicking on an item in the text list will highlight the incident on the map
What do the Traffic Jam Cameras show:
- Traffic jam cameras are frequently updated still images taken from CCTV cameras across the motorway and trunk road network
- They show snapshots of traffic conditions, which can be useful when used in combination with our incident data
- Camera images appear in popup panels within the map, allowing you to quickly close a camera, and click elsewhere without losing your position on the map
- Cameras are only shown on the map when zoomed in. This is to prevent too many cameras appearing, and slowing down the map when highly zoomed-out
- Cameras are not always available, because they are in active use by the Police or road authorities, or faulty. Unavailable cameras are indicated by a grey camera icon, generated automatically by our system
- If the map is hidden, you can still view camera images by choosing cameras from the text list
Other questions and feedback:
The BBC Travel News team are always happy to hear from you, and help with any problems you find with our site, or the information we provide.
Please use the form below to send the BBC Travel News website your comments, queries and feedback.
We appreciate your feedback, and it helps to improve the traffic and travel information service we provide to you via BBC Online, and our other delivery channels for BBC Travel News content.
Wherever possible we'll try to answer your emails, but due to the huge amount of e-mail correspondence we receive we cannot guarantee a personal reply.
The BBC and any service provider we engage will use the information you supply to respond to your queries/comments, to develop and enhance our services and for statistical analysis of audiences and users. For full details of our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you please visit our privacy policy page.
