Openrouteservice for complex route optimization in new QGIS extension by Regionalverband Ruhr

The Regionalverband Ruhr (Team 9-2 Geodata Technology) has used the potential of HeiGIT’s openrouteservice (ORS) in a new QGIS extension and thereby created another possible application for the ORS: The tool “Location and Route Optimization of Addresses” allows to search and locate addresses and to find the optimal routes between them.

This is possible not only for one, but for several vehicles: Different vehicles can be defined at the starting points as well as a maximum number of adresses that shall be approached by each vehicle. Optionally, end points of the routes and the length of stay per address can be specified. Thus, the ORS enables routing for complex and possibly time-bound operations and guarantees the greatest possible work efficiency. The driving instructions can then be exported as a PDF file for the respective vehicles and routes (the Print Layout plugin must be imported for this). Especially during the Corona pandemic, with the help of ORS, the tool can thus provide important support for the municipalities of the Geonetzwerk.metropoleRuhr.

In addition to route finding, the QGIS extension also offers the following functions:

  • Searching addresses. Currently, a full text search for addresses is possible. The extension suggests concrete results based on keywords for street and city, from which the desired locations can be selected. The data in the respective area is updated monthly and in the future, it will also be possible to suggest points of interest.
  • Location of addresses. Addresses can be read from an Excel file and located as a point layer in QGIS, provided that the table has an “address” section in which the character string of the address (street, house number and city) is listed.

More information about the extension as well as a detailed and illustrated application guide can be found at:

https://hilfe.geoportal.ruhr/openrouteservice/overview/index.html

Further information on HeiGIT’s OpenRouteService can be found at:

https://openrouteservice.org/

You can find information about parameters in our interactive documentation, and you can sign up for a free API key on our developer dashboard. Openrouteservice is serving the OSM community and more already since 2008 . Further details can be found in the openrouteservice GitHub repository, while more news concerning openrouteservice can be found under http://giscienceblog.uni-hd.de/tag/openrouteservice/.

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