**European Economic Area (EEA) developers**

> [!NOTE]
> If your billing address is in the European Economic Area, effective on 8 July 2025, the [Google Maps Platform EEA Terms of Service](https://cloud.google.com/terms/maps-platform/eea) will apply to your use of the Services. Functionality varies by region. [Learn more](https://developers.google.com/maps/comms/eea/faq.md.txt).

When you request a route, you can choose how the Routes API uses traffic
data when calculating your route. A traffic model is a way to factor
historical and live traffic conditions into your route generation, and can
affect both which routes you get and how long the estimated travel time is.

Here are the traffic options for a route:

| Traffic Option | Description |
|---|---|
| [Specify how and if to include traffic data](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/routes/config_trade_offs.md.txt) | Include traffic data for more accurate results, or exclude it for a faster response. |
| [Select whether polylines reflect traffic](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/routes/traffic_on_polylines.md.txt#request_a_traffic-aware_polyline) | You can include information about the traffic conditions along the route in your returned polylines. This feature is billed at a higher rate. |
| [Specify what traffic model to use](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/routes/traffic-model.md.txt) (Experimental) | Specify which traffic model to use to prioritize different factors used in calculating duration in traffic. |