Specify route features to avoid

  • The Routes API's Compute Route Matrix feature does not support avoiding route features.

  • You can request routes that avoid tolls, highways, ferries, and indoor travel using the routeModifiers property.

  • While route modifiers bias the results, they may not eliminate the specified features if alternatives are unavailable or significantly increase travel time.

  • You can specify route modifiers in both REST and gRPC requests, using the avoidTolls, avoidHighways, avoidFerries, and avoidIndoor fields within the routeModifiers property.
European Economic Area (EEA) developers

You specify which route features you prefer to avoid, such as avoiding tolls or highways, by adding route modifiers to a request. The API then attempts to provide a route that does not require those features.

Use the routeModifiers property in a request, of type RouteModifiers. You can specify avoidTolls, avoidHighways, avoidFerries, and avoidIndoor.

Specifying a route modifier does not necessarily eliminate routes that include the restricted feature. The API uses the modifier to bias the result to more favorable routes. There can be a few reasons why requesting an avoidance option doesn't change your route. For example, the only route from the origin to the destination makes it impossible to avoid a highway or ferry. Or, the alternate route actually lengthens travel time significantly.

The following example demonstrates how to set route modifiers in a computeRoutes method (REST) request body. You can also specify this option to the ComputeRoutes method (gRPC). In this example, you specify to avoid tolls and highways:

{
  "origin":{
    "location":{
      "latLng":{
        "latitude":37.419734,
        "longitude":-122.0827784
      }
    }
  },
  "destination":{
    "location":{
      "latLng":{
        "latitude":37.417670,
        "longitude":-122.079595
      }
    }
  },
  "routeModifiers": {
    "avoidTolls": true,
    "avoidHighways": true,
  }
}