MAC URISA 2016

This talk focuses on Mapzen's Mobility services including multi-modal routing, time distance matrix, route optimization, and isochrones. It will describe the underlying open source software, known as Valhalla, that uses open source data (primarily OpenStreetMap and public sources of transit data) to support worldwide routing, navigation, and analysis applications. The talk will discuss the dynamic costing methods applied to Valhalla. Rather than assigning costs to the routing graph during data import or graph creation, Valhalla performs costing at run time using a wide range of attribution. This allows flexible route generation using the same data. Costing modules exist for automobile, bus, truck, bicycle, pedestrian, and public transit. Each costing method allows for options to differentiate routes - for example bicycle routes have options for bicycle type, willingness to use roads (vs. cycleways and bike lanes), and elevation options to avoid hilly roads. The talk will also address the way Valhalla "tiles" and creates a hierarchical routing graph using OpenStreetMap data. The tiling of routing data allows more efficient memory management and allows easy download of regional data for off-line, disconnected applications. The ability to perform off-line routing (or "get me back to my route" functionality) has important applications for places where there is limited or no internet connectivity. We hope to demonstrate and discuss a mobile SDK for off-line route functionality with Valhalla.