Isochrones, routes and the road network
Four tools around the road network: reachability belts, service areas, a route between two points and network statistics. The route and the isochrones run on one and the same real OSM road graph inside the chosen bounding box and never leave it; if the box or the network in it is over the ceiling the answer falls back to the former rough estimate flagged as such, and when there are no roads at all or the point is off the network the tool refuses outright. A reachability belt that runs into the edge of the box is flagged separately: an hour of driving is some 40 km, and in a small box the belt is cut. How much road fits into one belt is finite: on foot that covers the whole range, while for driving in a dense centre the far belts are refused by name. Network statistics and service areas do use the real OSM road geometry.
Tools in this group: 4
Road-network accessibility isochrones
isochrone
Builds accessibility bands around a point for walking and driving by traversing the real OSM road graph inside the chosen bounding box: an edge costs its length divided by the mode speed (about 5 and 40 km/h), and a band is a corridor around the roads reachable in time. The computation never leaves the box, and a band that runs into its edge is flagged clipped_by_bbox — an hour of driving is some 40 km. How much road fits into one band is capped: a far band that holds more is refused by name in refused_bands while the nearer ones are still returned. If the box or the network in it is over the ceiling, the band query runs out of time, the database does not answer or the traversal exceeds its budget, the answer falls back to the former speed circles flagged buffer_fallback with the reason named; when there are no roads in the box or the point is off the network, the tool refuses outright with no geometry. Up to 6 bands, 1–60 minutes.
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Clicking the map sets a point: Point.
Service areas
service_area
Takes up to limit features of the layer inside the bounding box, builds a distance_m buffer (100–10,000 m on the ground) around each one and merges them into a single coverage polygon. The distance is straight-line, not travel time over the network.
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Route between two points along roads
shortest_path
Computes a route over the real OSM road graph inside the chosen bounding box: the network is loaded from the database, clipped to the box and traversed with the A* algorithm, so the route never leaves the box. Modes: driving (one-way streets are honoured, including untagged roundabouts) and walking. The points are snapped to the nearest network node no farther than 500 m away, and the offset is shown in the response. The bounding box for a route is up to 400 km²; if the box or the network inside it is above the ceiling, the database did not answer or the computation did not fit the budget, a straight line is returned marked straight_line_fallback with the reason named. If there are no roads in the box, a point lies off the network or the network is disconnected — an honest refusal with no line.
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Clicking the map sets a point: from, to.
Road network statistics
network_stats
Aggregates over the roads inside the bounding box: the number of segments, total and average length, the diversity of highway classes, the share of one-way segments and an estimate of intersection density (approximated from unique segment endpoints).
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No extra parameters — the bounding box is enough for this tool.
Input, output and limits
The input is a rectangular bounding box in WGS84 plus one of nine data layers; some tools also take a point. The output is GeoJSON, JSON metrics or a GeoTIFF.
| Layer | What it holds |
|---|---|
| buildings | buildings |
| roads | roads and streets |
| poi | points of interest: services, shops, tourism |
| water | water bodies |
| green_areas | green areas: parks, forests, lawns |
| railways | railways |
| boundaries | administrative boundaries |
| landuse | land use |
| waterways | waterways |
Every tool in the section is free. The bounding box may cover up to 100 km². Rate limits are 10 requests per minute per tool run and 30 requests per minute for reading the catalogue. Without signing in you get up to 10 successful calculations a day; after that the service asks you to register and answers 402 with the code login_required. A box larger than the allowed area is also 402, and an unknown tool id is 404.