Routes API release notes

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This page is updated with each new release of the Routes API. The changelog lists releases by date and includes any new features, bug fixes and significant performance improvements.

See the Getting Started documentation for information on how to get started using the Routes API.

June 29, 2023

This release extends the General Availability (GA) release of the Routes API from March 2023. It includes the following features previously available only through the Directions API or Distance Matrix API.

See the Release Notes for information about this release and all other releases. If you are a new user, see Set Up your Google Cloud project to start the installation process.

You can now compute routes for transit travel modes. For details, see Compute a route on transit.

You can now calculate routes with up to 25 intermediate waypoints with and let Google optimize the order of those waypoints for your route. For details, see Optimize the order of stops on your route.

You can now get a localized text representation of time, distance, duration, and transit fares using the inferred or specified language and measurement unit systems. For details, see Request localized values.

You can now specify a traffic model to use when computing routes with traffic. This is an experimental feature. For details, see Specify the traffic model type to use.

You can now get HTML-formatted navigation instructions. For details, see Extra Computations.

March 08, 2023

Routes API

Announcing the General Availability (GA) release of the Routes API. See the Release Notes for information about this release and for all other releases.

If you are a new user, see Set Up in the Google Cloud Console to start the installation process.

Along with place IDs and latitude/longitude coordinates, you can now specify a location in the GA release by using address strings ("Chicago, IL" or "Darwin, NT, Australia") and Plus Codes. For more information and examples, see Specify location and route options.

The Compute Routes response now contains the geocodingResults array. For every location in the request (origin, destination, or intermediate waypoint) that was specified as an address string or as a Plus code, the API performs a place ID lookup. Each element of this array contains the place ID corresponding to a location along with additional metadata. Locations in the request specified as a place ID or as latitude/longitude coordinates are ignored.

You must now explicitly enable the following features in the GA by adding the new array extraComputations field to the request:

In the Preview release, you used a field mask to configure the method to return information in the response for these features. In the GA, you still specify the field mask but now you must also set the new array extraComputations field.

November 01, 2022

Added support for eco-friendly routing to the Routes API Preview. When you enable eco-friendly routing, the API returns an eco-friendly route showing the most fuel or energy efficient route based on your vehicle's engine type. For more information, see Configure eco-friendly routes.

September 28, 2022

The Preview release of the Routes API is now available. For information about this release, and for all previous releases, see the Release Notes or subscribe to the Release Notes XML feed.

To start the installation process, see Set Up in the Google Cloud Console.