Traffic Flow
Problem: I need current speed and congestion on the roads in an area.Prerequisites
- A HERE API key with Traffic entitlement
export HERE_API_KEY="..."
Traffic v7 is a data API, not a tile API. It returns JSON describing road segments, not images.Two parameters are mandatory on every request:
in (geospatial filter) and locationReferencing. Omitting locationReferencing returns E608051.The code
Geospatial filters
in accepts four formats. Choose the smallest that covers your question.
Response walkthrough
Flow:jamFactor runs 0.0 (free flow) to 10.0 (standstill or closed). It is the field you filter and alert on.
speed and freeFlow are metres per second. Not km/h.
Incidents:
lang=en-US for English.
locationReferencing
Request only what you can interpret. Asking for
shape when you use olr returns geometry you parse and discard.
Common mistakes
OmittinglocationReferencing. E608051. It is mandatory.
Filtering jam factor client-side. Use minJamFactor / maxJamFactor.
Treating speed as km/h. Metres per second.
Polling a city-wide bounding box for a live map. Use corridor: around your route, or tile: for a viewport.
Using Flow to detect closures. Use Incidents.
Requesting shape when you do not render geometry. Use none.
Assuming Traffic replaces departureTime on a routing call. The Routing API applies traffic internally. This API is for displaying or analysing traffic, not for making routes traffic-aware.
Production considerations
Do not poll on map pan. Every drag becomes a request. Debounce, and cache per tile. Corridor filters for route-relevant traffic. Bounding boxes return everything. Cache with a short TTL. Traffic is near-real-time; it is not per-second. This is a separate meter. Traffic bills independently of routing and tiles. Traffic overlays left permanently enabled are a cost decision, not a styling one.functionalClasses narrows to major roads. A dispatcher watching highways does not need residential streets.
E608xxx codes are malformed-query errors. Read the message; do not retry.
Related
Maps
Traffic as a rendering layer, and why it bills separately.
ETA Calculation
departureTime on a routing call, not a Traffic query.Fleet Routing
Where traffic enters dispatch decisions.
Cost Optimization Patterns
Pattern 1: the unit of work. Do not poll per pan.
HERE documentation
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