Specify route features to avoid

You specify which route features you prefer to avoid, such as avoiding tolls or highways, by adding route modifiers to a request. The API then attempts to provide a route that does not require those features.

Use the routeModifiers property in a request, of type RouteModifiers. You can specify avoidTolls, avoidHighways, avoidFerries, and avoidIndoor.

Specifying a route modifier does not necessarily eliminate routes that include the restricted feature. The API uses the modifier to bias the result to more favorable routes. There can be a few reasons why requesting an avoidance option doesn't change your route. For example, the only route from the origin to the destination makes it impossible to avoid a highway or ferry. Or, the alternate route actually lengthens travel time significantly.

The following example demonstrates how to set route modifiers in a computeRoutes method (REST) request body. You can also specify this option to the ComputeRoutes method (gRPC). In this example, you specify to avoid tolls and highways:

{
  "origin":{
    "location":{
      "latLng":{
        "latitude":37.419734,
        "longitude":-122.0827784
      }
    }
  },
  "destination":{
    "location":{
      "latLng":{
        "latitude":37.417670,
        "longitude":-122.079595
      }
    }
  },
  "routeModifiers": {
    "avoidTolls": true,
    "avoidHighways": true,
  }
}