Extra Info

When requesting routes, there are a number of "extra info" items that can be requested to give you more information about the route. This info could be things like the road surface, track type, or OpenStreetMap way ID. The list below details which extra info items are available for each profile in the routing provided by https://api.openrouteservice.org.

Specify Extra Info in Request

The desired extra info can be specified in the request body parameter extra_info:

"extra_info": [ "steepness", "waytype"]

The following table lists the possible values for the request as well as the keys and possible values in the directions response:

Request Value in extra_info	Description	Key in Response $.routes[*].extras	Response Values
steepness	Provides information about how steep parts of the route are	steepness	Steepness IDs
suitability	How suitable the way is based on characteristics of the route and the profile	suitability	1 (unsuitable) - 10 (very suitable)
surface	The surface covering along the route	surface	Surface IDs
waycategory	Specific categories of parts of the route (tollways, highways, fords etc.)	waycategory	Category IDs
waytype	Types of roads and paths that are used in the route	waytypes¹	Type IDs
tollways	Any tollways that the route crosses. Whether a way is marked as tollway depends on profile	tollways	0 (no tollway) or 1 (tollway)
traildifficulty	The difficulty of parts of the way based on sac or mountain bike scales	traildifficulty	Difficulty IDs
osmid	The OpenStreetMap way IDs of the ways the route uses	osmId¹
roadaccessrestrictions	Information about ways that may have access restrictions (e.g. private roads, destination only)	roadaccessrestrictions	Restrictions IDs
countryinfo	Which country parts of the way lies in	countryinfo	Country IDs
green	How "green" the parts of the route are (influenced by things like number of trees, parks, rivers etc.)	green	0 (minimal green-space) - 10 (a lot of green-space)
noise	How noisy the parts of the route are (influenced by things like proximity to highways)	noise	0 (quiet) - 10 (noisy)
shadow²	How sunny the parts of the route are are	shadow	0 (completely in the shadow) - 10 (completely in the sun)
csv²	Experimental feature: Generic extra information from provided csv file(s)	csv	custom values

¹ Note the different keys in request and response!

² No data available in the public openrouteservice hosted by HeiGIT

Extra Info Availability

Some values are not available in all routing profiles:

	steepness	suitability	surface	waycategory	waytype	tollways	traildifficulty	osmid	roadaccessrestrictions	countryinfo	green	noise	shadow
driving-car	x	x	x	x	x	x	x		x	x
driving-hgv	x	x	x	x	x	x	x		x	x
cycling-regular	x	x	x	x	x		x
cycling-mountain	x	x	x	x	x		x
cycling-road	x	x	x	x	x		x
cycling-electric	x	x	x	x	x		x
foot-walking	x	x	x	x	x		x				x	x	x
foot-hiking	x	x	x	x	x		x				x	x	x
wheelchair	x	x	x	x	x		x	x

Extra Info in Responses

The requested extra information can be found in the directions response (JSON endpoints) in the node

$.routes[*].extras

of type object. Each requested extra_info is represented as a nested object entry with the requested value as key, e.g. steepness. Note that some keys in the extras object are different from the requested values, see the table above!

Here one example:

"extras": {
  "waytypes": {
    "values": [
      [
        0,
        17,
        3
      ],
      [
        17,
        19,
        1
      ],
      [
        19,
        20,
        3
      ]
    ],
    "summary": [
      {
        "value": 3,
        "distance": 1285.2,
        "amount": 93.93
      },
      {
        "value": 1,
        "distance": 83,
        "amount": 6.07
      }
    ]
  },
  "steepness": {
    "values": [
      [
        0,
        20,
        0
      ]
    ],
    "summary": [
      {
        "value": 0,
        "distance": 1368.2,
        "amount": 100
      }
    ]
  }
}

The values of each entry have the same structure: Objects with the entries values and summary:

values

A list of integer arrays with length 3 representing a contiguous section of the calculated route with the same value of the requested information type. The three values of each list have the following semantics:

1. Index of the way point starting the section
2. Index of the way point at the end of the section
3. Value of the extra info measure (waytype, steepness etc.) for this section

In the example above, the calculated route has three sections with different waytypes:

• waypoints 0-17: waytype=3
• waypoints 17-19: waytype=1
• waypoints 19-20: waytype=3

and only one section (i.e. the whole route) from waypoint 0-20 with steepness=0.

summary

A list of objects with the entries value, distance, amount summarizing the total length (distance) and relative length (amount) of all segments with a given value of the extra info unit.

In the example above, all sections with waytype=3 have a summarized length of 1285.2 m which is 93.93% of the calculated route and 100% of the route have steepness=0.