Traffic

The calculation of a route can take various time-dependent information into account, such as live traffic conditions, historical traffic patterns, and time-dependent restrictions.

If your route request specifies neither the departureTime nor the arrivalTime parameter, the default departure time for a route is the time of the route request.

In your route request, you can use the departureTime parameter to specify a different departure time at which the route begins.

You can use the arrivalTime parameter to specify a time at which the route should end.

To find out more about departureTime and arrivalTime, see the API reference or the related tutorials under Tutorials: Time settings, for example Begin route at any time.

A different departureTime or arrivalTime will have various effects ranging from different traffic impact to road closures.

If you specify departureTime as any, the route calculation will not take time-dependent information into account, with the exception of long-term closures. Long-term closures (that is, current closures that last for more than a day) will still be considered. departureTime=any is often referred to as "planning mode", and can be useful when the departure or arrival time of the route are not known in advance. Note that sending the same request with the parameter departureTime=any at different times may result in different responses.

For sample usage of traffic parameters, see Begin or end route at different times.