Stay on course with offline routing
By: Tarani Duncan
Turn-by-turn navigation is now available even when a connection to the internet is not. Offline routing means users can request new routes in disconnected or semi-connected environments, and even if you go off-route, the system can reroute, keeping you headed to your destination without requiring network connectivity.
For delivery companies, who often operate in areas of low cell connectivity, the ability to maintain directions or calculate a new path is critical. One customer using offline routing found that lack of cellular coverage affects up to 15% of their delivery routes. When coupled with data-plan savings, offline mode can offer a competitive advantage for delivery companies.
Offline mode is also useful for outdoor applications like bicycling and hiking where the activity may be taking place in areas of no cell signal or connectivity, or in travel applications when the user is in areas outside their usual cellphone network.
Under the hood
Offline mode moves the routing engine and data from the server onto a user’s embedded or mobile device, meaning there’s no need to make an HTTP call for routing information. You can even ship our offline routing data along with an embedded device. For mobile apps, we provide an API for downloading regions of data for directions. The full tilepack must be downloaded, but only needs to be updated occasionally. Our APIs provide fresh data weekly.
Taking your turn-by-turn directions offline mitigates against network latency, transport, and serialization/deserialization from the time required to generate and retrieve a new route calculation. This lowers the latency of route responses and enables a better user experience in semi-connected circumstances. And, of course, offline mode gives your users peace of mind that they can find a new route or even re-route when their device is lacking connection and saves money on connectivity costs.
We’ve just released the beta for offline routing. When it goes live in November it will be supported by many profiles included in the Mapbox Directions API—walking, cycling, and driving. Driving-traffic will be the only profile not immediately supported.
Interested in early access? Reach out to our team and we’ll get you set up.
