Route planner

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Route planners (route planner, route planner , from French: route = way) are computer programs with the help of which a route between a starting point and a destination can be found. Usually one or more places in between ("via") can be specified. In most cases, wishes can be given as to whether the fastest, shortest, most economical (most economical) or sometimes the most beautiful route should be sought.

Route planners are available either offline for PC, for GPS-based navigation systems or on the Internet. There are special route planners for cyclists that select connections suitable for bicycles when determining the route. There are also special route planners for trucks that take weight restrictions into account, for example.

Data

The geodata (routable road network data , geocoded house numbers, points of interest ) of the various route planners come from only a few companies. Current Europe-wide road data are u. a. created by the companies HERE (formerly Navteq ), TomTom (formerly Tele Atlas ) and PTV .

The free community project OpenStreetMap is enjoying increasing popularity. Its aim is to collect geodata around the world that is available to everyone free of charge. In urban areas, the data are often almost complete; there are regional differences in quality and completeness in the area.

Solution strategies

Solutions can be found with the help of graph theory ; for an optimal solution, for example with the Dijkstra algorithm . In order to arrive at the optimal solution quickly enough for route planners with road networks of entire continents, the use of acceleration techniques is necessary. Many commercial systems still use heuristics , but they also find very good solutions. A special case of route planning is the traveling salesman problem .

Cycle route planner

Example of the output of the Stuttgart Transport Association's cycle route planner

Cycle route planners are special route planners that prefer specific cycle paths or paths suitable for cyclists when determining the route. In contrast to the very numerous route planners for car drivers, there are only a small number of cycle route planners such as B. GraphHopper , which gets its data from the OpenStreetMap project and z. B. is in use at the leisure portals GPSies or Komoot .

The first cycle route planner with public funding was offered by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1997 . a. the federal states of Hesse , Rhineland-Palatinate , Bremen , Bavaria and since April 2011 Schleswig-Holstein and since 2014 Lower Saxony . In the Netherlands there is a similar system operated by the national cycling club. A national cycle route planner is also in operation in Baden-Württemberg . For Hamburg and the surrounding area, a cycle route planner is integrated into the timetable information of the Hamburg Transport Association (HVV). An example of a local cycle route planner below the state level is that of the Stuttgart Transport and Tariff Association , which covers an area of ​​five districts and, through the possibility of combining it with public transport, is intended to promote local transport in addition to tourist development.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Engineering Route Planning Algorithms, D. Delling et al. Retrieved January 10, 2015 .
  2. ↑ bing.com: Bing Maps New Routing Engine. Retrieved January 10, 2015 . (English)

Web links

Wiktionary: Route planner  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations