Plan and execute routes more precisely with the new map matching algorithm for Precomputed Routes

When planning routes, many businesses prefer to use a set of invisible points that are utilized for route calculation, but contrary to waypoints, they aren’t shown on a map. Sygic Professional Navigation supports this use case with a magnetic routing algorithm within the Precomputed Routes functionality. The latest version 21.1.0 has introduced map matching, thereby enabling more precise route planning.

How it works and what has changed

Magnetic routing uses a (potentially quite dense) set of input points to which the final route should adhere. If two subsequent points from the input set are too far apart, traditional routing is utilized for this segment. The final precomputed route is then pushed to the driver’s device. The navigation suppresses its own routing algorithm and navigates the driver by executing the given route to a T. This enables businesses to preplan their routes and then avoid fuel cost discrepancies during their execution.

Since Sygic’s magnetic routing uses two different approaches to deal with close versus distant points (i.e. simple polyline calculation versus actual routing), it has certain limitations. For example, it doesn’t allow for driving back and forth on the same street.

To upgrade the algorithm, we have introduced map matching, an approach in which a set of GPS points is matched to the underlying map, adding more context. This change creates a more precise polyline over the map data before the routing algorithm kicks in to complete the route, potentially against the wishes of the dispatcher.

Switching between algorithms

There are situations in which the older magnetic routing performs better and map matching is counterproductive, e.g. if the input points are not placed exactly on the road segments. That’s why we decided to keep both algorithms and add a new .omc file format for the Old Magnetic Compute so that clients can define which algorithm to use and when.

To learn how to switch between them and work with them, please see the Route object chapter in our Routing API documentation.

If you have any questions about the functionality, please feel free to contact your designated Sygic contact.