First meeting
Our world is like a big anthill. We move through its expanses, doing our work or resting. We move goods and cargo from one point to another. We walk on foot; we have created different modes of transport. We strive to ensure that all movements are planned rationally, economically, and without unnecessary costs.
For all plans to come true the way we want, we need the help of modern digital technologies, in the arsenal of which some methods are capable of calculating and providing us with information about routes and distances between different points of our planet and predicting the time of movement. And doing these calculations, they can consider not only the mode of transport but specific features that may come our way. All these tasks are successfully solved by the API Distance Matrix.
How the API can help?
In the modern world, the API (Application Programming Interface) service is used everywhere, which means that this digital assistant has become a familiar standard in business and technology. Of course, even before the advent of the API, there were different ways to synchronize different software products. Still, these methods required a lot of time. They carried certain risks, for example, the risk that the content could become outdated, contain outdated links, and could not be updated automatically.
After the appearance of the API, the process of synchronizing the data of various programs has become much simpler. And now, thanks to this interface, several resources are simultaneously available to users of the World Wide Web, despite their different programs.
Let’s find out if the API can help those who carry out their movements and trips or those who carry out the movement of cargo and goods. Indeed, it can. Indeed, to solve many logistics and transport problems, you need to calculate the optimal distance between two or more locations, predict the time of travel, and, if possible, take into account various nuances on the route. All these tasks are easy to solve using one of the API tools – the distance matrix.
The API Distance Matrix will provide data for all the travel elements you request.
Practical implementation
Suppose that you are a logistics specialist of a company that needs to determine routes from the central warehouse to several places to deliver goods. Moreover, you need to reduce delivery time and consider the situation on the roads – traffic jams, reverse traffic, etc. And in this case, a truck is the main transport you must use.
You form an appropriate request and wait for a response to it. The result of your request will be the API response containing a distance matrix in a specific JSON format. This format is based on JavaScript, can be used by any programming language, and is not difficult for a human to read.
Since you need information on moving from one initial location to several destinations, then in the API response, which contains the distance matrix, there will be a route calculation and the time prognosis for each pair of initial location and place of destination.
Before we consider the elements of the request, it should be noted that the undoubted advantage of the developed API DistanceMatrix is that this function is compatible with the Google Distance Matrix service, which undoubtedly facilitates its use. You can see the corresponding Migrate to Distance Matrix AI page for a comparison between the API DistanceMatrix and Google Distance Matrix services.
So let’s briefly analyze the request elements for the above example.
To receive a correct response, the request must contain the required components. In our example, these are:
1 – the location of the central warehouse in address format or coordinate system format (latitude and longitude), which is preferable.
If an address is specified instead of a coordinate system in the request, then the API decodes it into a coordinate system on its own. In this case, there may be a slight difference between the decoded coordinates and the coordinates indicated in the response (for example, in the request – the center of the building, in the response – the entrance to the same building).
2 – the location of the destination places in the formats of addresses or coordinate systems, as in the previous case.
3 – The so-called API key is a unique identifier for your specific request. You get an API key after registering on the service.
In addition to the mandatory elements listed above, the request may also contain other parameters, which are not mandatory but will facilitate the calculations greatly and make it possible to provide more complete data. A complete list of parameters specified in the request can be found in the relevant sections of the “Developer’s Guide” of the DistanceMatrix. It should be added that some of these parameters are defined by the API by default if they are not specified in the request.
After processing the request, the user receives an API response. The response looks like an array of information divided by meaning into lines and rows.
The lines reflect data of the request about the initial location and the destination (one or more) in the language specified in the request or defined by the default API.
The rows reflect the results of calculating the distance and duration, as well as status codes, both at the top level and by each element.
Status codes mean the result of the request’s status and debug information (if necessary). It means that with the correct state of the request and the correct data, the status codes, both of the top level and individual elements will be indicated by the word “ok.” In other cases, the status codes will have different designations. About them, you can learn more on the Developer Guides page of the DistanceMatrix. In this case, an additional field “error_message” may appear in the response of the distance matrix. This field will give information about the error corresponding to the specified code.
Why is the choice of the DistanceMatrix API obvious?
First of all, the API DistanceMatrix is very simple and intuitive for any user category.
In addition to the learning speed, DistanceMatrix is reliable and has a high performance and efficiency, which is essential for business and personal use.
An additional plus of the API DistanceMatrix is its compatibility with the Google API, which makes it easy to migrate between services without rewriting the current code.
And a fast response, high accuracy, and extensive coverage of territories make this service acceptable for use and indispensable in many cases.
