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Maps

Truck Attributes and Considerations

The Bing Maps Truck Routing API saves trucks and other commercial vehicles from unnecessary danger and wasting time by optimizing routes for your specific needs.

Truck Attributes

Height, length, width, turning radius

Road Restrictions

Maximum bridge/underpass weight or height

Legal Restrictions

Hazardous materials, waterways, tunnels and more

Traffic Conditions

Speed limit, construction, lane closures

Other Conditions

Strong crosswinds, toll roads, road gradient

trucks on interstate
Bing Maps API

Why Truck Routing?

Traversing unfamiliar terrain for commercial deliveries can turn costly and dangerous if drivers aren’t well informed about their journey. When creating truck route maps, knowing which roads that accommodate the dimensions of larger vehicles is essential. Consumer routing services, made for cars and other consumer vehicles, don’t account for these requirements.

route planning on laptop

Optimized Routing for Commercial Vehicles

Bing Maps Truck Routing API is a commercial routing tool that calculates routes optimized for trucks and other commercial vehicles. Logistics providers use this API to create truck routing software that accounts for unique requirements by matching the vehicle specifications to a route’s limitations. It also takes real-time traffic at a given location into consideration, cutting down transportation times immensely.

semi truck on local streets

Parameters and Preferences

With Bing Maps API, you can plan more efficient truck routes using the following parameters and preferences:

  • Vehicle’s dimensions and weight
  • Number of axles and/or number of trailers
  • Speed limitations
  • Legal restrictions and permit requirements, such as transporting flammable materials
  • Road conditions (strong crosswind areas, construction, road gradient, etc.)
  • Avoid unnecessary routes, such as toll roads, highways, ferries and more
route planning on laptop
CUSTOMER STORY

Discover Journeys with Bing Maps

RouteSavvy by OnTerra Systems

Long-time Microsoft partner OnTerra Systems used Bing Maps API to power their logistics solution RouteSavvy, software for routing trucks and other commercial vehicles. They’ve used features like predictive traffic to drive up productivity and optimize routes, reducing fuel costs and producing incredible ROI. 

RouteSavvy is now one of the fastest growing logistics solutions providers in the market today.

Try Truck Routing

Interact with routes calculated for commercial vehicles based and predefined vehicle attributes.

Frequently Asked Questions

To try this service, create a basic account, which will provide up to 125K transactions per calendar year at no charge. Above this usage limit, you will need to purchase a license. To purchase a Transactions license, contact a Sales Specialist. To start developing with this API, use the Truck Routing API documentation.

  • Truck Routing API is available for Internal Website Transactions licensing. It is not available for Known or Light Known users.
  • For Mobile Asset Management, the Truck Routing API is available by purchasing an add-on license (Note: You must have the underlying Asset Management per asset license first).

Enterprise Customers will be able to license via the following options:

  1. Internal Website Transactions (when using in an application that is not related to asset tracking) – If you are not licensed for Internal Transactions, you can purchase these from your sales partner.
    • You will need to create a separate account ID on the Bing Maps Dev Center that will be specific to your internal transaction usage.
    • The Truck Routing API is available for Internal transaction website licensing. It is not available for Public transaction website licensing, or for Known or Light Known users.
      Note: This API will increase the consumption of billable transactions, which may result in the need to purchase additional transactions.
  2. Per Asset (applicable when being used as part of asset tracking solution) – To use the Truck Routing API, you will need an underlying Asset Management per asset license (with or without routing) and will the need to purchase an additional per asset license for the use of this new service. For licensing and pricing questions, please contact a Sales Specialist.

You will need to purchase billable transactions based upon your consumption. For a transaction model, consumption of the API is 1 call = 3 billable transactions. For per asset model pricing, contact a Bing Maps Sales Specialist.

The Truck Routing API supports up to 25 waypoints, with a minimum of 2 waypoints per call. See the Truck Routing API documentation for more information.

To try the Truck Routing API, you will need to create a Basic key. When you are ready to deploy into production, you will need to upgrade to an Enterprise key.

The Truck Routing API is available for Basic and Enterprise accounts (normal Terms of Use limits will apply for Basic accounts), and is available for Internal Website transactions only. It is not available for Known or Light Known users, or for Asset Management per asset licensing.

If you would like to try the API, you can create a Basic key. To deploy into production, you will need to upgrade to an Enterprise key.

Currently, we support coverage in 80 countries, with plans to expand as more information becomes available in other countries regarding its road segment restrictions. Truck Routing support coverage: Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Réunion, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City, Vietnam.

The Truck Routing API does not support waypoint reordering. You can use the Bing Maps Distance Matrix API, in a many-to-many waypoint scenario, for enhanced route optimization along with the Truck Routing API. First, use the Distance Matrix API to get an estimate of times for each route and then determine the best time for each route. Once you have the order of each route, use the Truck Routing API to get directions for each route (point A to point B).

To develop and deploy this service, refer to the Truck Routing API documentation. If you have licensing questions, please contact a Bing Maps Sales Specialist. For Enterprise Customer Support, click here. Or check out the Bing Maps Developer Network forum.

You can use the Truck Routing API for navigation. However, to advance to the next instruction, the user would need to initiate the switch to the next step (i.e. push a button), rather than the application automatically advancing to the next instruction based on the GPS position of the device. Similarly, if the user were to go off course, they would need to initiate the action to calculate a new route rather than this being initiated automatically based on a sensor event.

This is a restriction as per the Terms of Use, section 3.2 (e): Present or alert an end user to individual maneuvers of a route in any way that is synchronized with the end-user’s sensor-based position along the route (e.g. turn by turn navigation that tracks end-user’s position using GPS and communicates a maneuver as the end-user approaches the location for such maneuver).

More APIs from Bing Maps

Distance Matrix API

Calculate travel times and distances between a set of origins and destinations.

Snap-to-Road API

Advanced data visualization and asset tracking with coordinates that follow the geometry of the road.

Truck Routing API

Designed for professional transportation routing logistics.