Set intermediate waypoints

  • Intermediate waypoints allow you to specify locations between the origin and destination for a route to pass through or stop at.

  • You can define up to 25 intermediate waypoints using the intermediates property when computing routes, but requests with 11 or more are billed at a higher rate.

  • The response provides route details including legs, with each leg representing a segment of the journey between waypoints.

  • Each leg within the route is further broken down into steps, providing detailed information about each segment of the journey.
European Economic Area (EEA) developers

Intermediate waypoints are locations in between the origin and destination that you want the route to go through. An intermediate waypoint can be a stop or you can specify it as a location to pass through. For an example of a waypoint for a stop, see Set a stop along a route. For an example of a waypoint to pass-through, Set point for a route to pass-through.

Use the intermediates array property of the computeRoutes method (REST) or the ComputeRoutes method (gRPC), to define up to a maximum of 25 intermediate waypoints.

For each intermediate waypoint in the request, the Route object (REST) or Route object (gRPC) in the response adds an entry to the legs array to provide the details for that leg of the journey.

Each leg of a route is represented by a RouteLeg (REST) or RouteLeg (gRPC) object. Control which RouteLeg fields to return by using the response field mask.

Example - Set an intermediate waypoint

The following example uses the intermediates array property to add a single intermediate waypoint to the POST request body of a route.

This example uses a response field mask in the X-Goog-FieldMask header that specifies to return the following fields in the response:

  • routes.duration
  • routes.distanceMeters
  • routes.legs corresponding to the entire RouteLeg object.
curl -X POST -d '{
  "origin":{
    "location":{
      "latLng":{
        "latitude": 37.419734,
        "longitude": -122.0827784
      }
    },
    "sideOfRoad": true
  },
  "destination":{
    "location":{
      "latLng":{
        "latitude": 37.417670,
        "longitude": -122.079595
      }
    }
  },
  "intermediates": [
    {
      "location":{
        "latLng":{
          "latitude": 37.419734,
          "longitude": -122.0807784
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "travelMode": "DRIVE",
  "routingPreference": "TRAFFIC_AWARE",
  "departureTime": "2022-10-15T15:01:23.045123456Z",
  "computeAlternativeRoutes": false,
  "routeModifiers": {
    "avoidTolls": false,
    "avoidHighways": false,
    "avoidFerries": false
  },
  "languageCode": "en-US",
  "units": "IMPERIAL"
}'
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'X-Goog-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY'
-H 'X-Goog-FieldMask: routes.duration,routes.distanceMeters,routes.legs'
'https://routes.googleapis.com/directions/v2:computeRoutes'

The response from this call contains the legs array. Each step of the leg is represented by a RouteLegStep (REST) or RouteLegStep (gRPC) object.

{
  "routes": [
    {
      "legs": [
        # First leg
        {
            "distanceMeters": 207,
            "duration": "89s",
            "staticDuration": "89s",
            "polyline": {
                "encodedPolyline": "ipkcFjgchVd@@@cF]@@oCK?"
            },
            "startLocation": {
                "latLng": {
                    "latitude": 37.4197318,
                    "longitude": -122.0826233
                }
            },
            "endLocation": {
                "latLng": {
                    "latitude": 37.419734,
                    "longitude": -122.08077919999998
                }
            },
            "steps": [            {
              "distanceMeters": 21,
              "staticDuration": "6s",
              "polyline": {
                "encodedPolyline": "ipkcFjgchVd@@"
              },
              "startLocation": {
                "latLng": {
                  "latitude": 37.4197318,
                  "longitude": -122.0826233
                }
              },
              "endLocation": {
                "latLng": {
                  "latitude": 37.41954,
                  "longitude": -122.08262750000002
                }
              }
            },
            ...
        },
        # Second leg
        {
            "distanceMeters": 598,
            "duration": "159s",
            "staticDuration": "159s",
            "polyline": {
                "encodedPolyline": "ipkcFz{bhVh@??{@xPBP?J}E{E?"
            },
            "startLocation": {
                "latLng": {
                    "latitude": 37.419734,
                    "longitude": -122.08077919999998
                }
            },
            "endLocation": {
                "latLng": {
                    "latitude": 37.417616599999995,
                    "longitude": -122.07938820000001
                }
            },
            "steps": [
                {
                  ...