HERE Technologies Makes Truck Routing Easy on Amazon Location Service

HERE Technologies provides Amazon Location Service with map rendering, geocoding, search, and routing, with global coverage and local flavor that transect geographic borders. Previously, we discussed HERE Maps, HERE Geocoding and Search and HERE Routing on Amazon Location Service. In this blog, we will discuss the truck routing feature in Amazon Location Service using accurate, fresh, and robust data from HERE Technologies.

Truck Routing

Trucks have attributes that can limit them from using the same routes as regular cars. The attributes such as the vehicle's height, length, weight, width, types of load, regulatory restrictions, and more. With HERE Routing API, you can calculate a route that considers the truck's attributes into any route limitations, such as low and narrow bridges, hazardous materials, road closures, and tight turns.

HERE Technologies offers a dedicated truck routing feature to provide truck drivers and operators with safe and efficient routes for their trucks. This feature is available on Amazon Location Service under HERE Routing capabilities and supports all physical restrictions, truck profiles (height, length, width, and weight), and difficult maneuver avoidance.

Use Cases

It is frustrating for the drivers when a truck is stuck at a bridge that is too low for it to go through underneath safely. With HERE Truck Routing on Amazon Location Service, businesses can optimize the routing of trucking vehicles safely and efficiently, which could help avoid expensive fines, dangerous situations, and missing delivery windows. A common scenario is routes comparison between "Regular" delivery vans (24ft 2in long, 8ft 11in high, 7ft 8in high, fully loaded at 9050 lbs) and "Tall" U.S. long haul truck (48ft trailer, 13ft 6in high, 8ft 6in wide, loaded weight of 79000 lbs), for example:

Truck Route from Newark Airport to Downtown Manhattan

The most direct route is through the Holland Tunnel (see left image below), however, the narrow tunnel limits vehicle sizes and prohibits flammable loads. As a result, tall and hazardous loads travel nearly twice the distance (70 % greater), going south to Staten Island and then across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, through Brooklyn, and across the Manhattan Bridge (see right image below).

A route that a regular truck (left) and a tall truck (right) takes to go from Newark Airport, NJ to Downtown Manhattan, NY.

Truck Route from Newark Airport to Midtown Manhattan

If you have a truck carrying a load from the airport to Midtown, there are two very different routes: One for regular loads which go through the Lincoln Tunnel (see left image below) and the other for tall loads, which may take up to 35 min longer (see right image below).

A route that a regular truck (left) and a tall truck (right) takes to go from Newark Airport, NJ to Midtown Manhattan, NY.

Features and Capabilities

Supports up to 23 waypoint stops along the way between an origin and a destination.

Accommodates truck dimensions: height, length, and width.

Accommodates truck weight.

Avoid U-turns and difficult maneuvers.

Support route options for the fastest route, and avoid road types (e.g., highway, ferry, toll roads).

Traffic-enabled routes based on real-time and/or historical traffic data.

Time-aware routes based on time of the day, and time of the year.

Incident-aware routes based on traffic incidents, construction, etc.

Enabling Truck Routing

To enable this feature, you can set a travel mode to Truck when using CalculateRoute and CalculateRouteMatrix. And then you can specify additional route preferences with the parameter TruckModeOptions which specifies route preferences when traveling in a truck such as TruckDimensions and TruckWeight, in addition to AvoidFerries or AvoidTolls.

The following CalculateRoute request specifies Truck as the mode of travel with additional truck-related route restrictions:

{
   "DeparturePosition": [-122.7565,49.0021],
   "DestinationPosition": [-122.3394, 47.6159],
   "DepartNow": true,
   "TravelMode": "Truck",
   "TruckModeOptions": { 
      "AvoidFerries": true,
      "AvoidTolls": false,
      "Dimensions": { 
         "Height": 4.5,
         "Length": 15.5,
         "Unit": "Meters",
         "Width": 4.5
      },
      "Weight": { 
         "Total": 7500,
         "Unit": "Pounds"
      }
   }
}

Sample Application

Below is an online route planner that finds the optimal truck routes between an origin, a destination and up to 23 waypoint stops along the way for trucks, avoidances (tolls and ferries), and departure times. It demonstrates Amazon Location Service's routing functionality in a web application, using HERE Routing and HERE Truck Explore map as the resources. This sample app is built with Vue.js, MapLibre GL JS, and Tailwind CSS, you can find the source code from this Github repo.

Conclusion

HERE Technologies enables Amazon Location Service customers with an easy and simple way to do Truck Routing by specifying the travel mode along with truck dimensions and weight.