Driver Routing and Navigation

Driver Routing image The Driver Routing and Navigation capability is an On-demand Rides and Deliveries Solution toolkit comprised of two SDKs: the Navigation SDK and the Driver SDK. It provides enterprise-level features that embed the Google Maps experience into your driver application.

What can you do with driver routing and navigation?

With Driver Routing and Navigation, you use both the Navigation SDK and Driver SDK to tune the driving experience to suit your delivery model. Use the Navigation SDK to create a turn-by-turn navigation experience in your app to guide drivers in real-time. Customize the navigation experience to match the look and feel of your app, and enhance drivers' broader workflows with optimized routes and drop-off locations.

Use the Driver SDK to enable your driver locations and route progress to be visualized through the Trip and Order Progress capability.

Why use driver routing and navigation?

As a rideshare or delivery provider, it's crucial to improve your driver predictability and productivity in order to meet consumer expectations. Driver routing and navigation helps you more efficiently route your drivers, avoid delays and missed rides and deliveries, and improve your driver's satisfaction.

  • Improve driver satisfaction — Your app can help drivers feel in control and aware as they accomplish a day of tasks. Your drivers don't have to learn a new map interface, but can use familiar Google Maps navigation. The experience can be customized to reinforce your brand.

  • Improve driver productivity — Guide your drivers to the right spot with routes that reflect real-time traffic. You can provide custom routes and map elements specific to your services.

  • Improve driver predictability — With an app that embeds the Google Maps experience, you can have more confidence that your drivers follow expected route plans. Keeping your drivers within your application also improves the quality of the returned location signals.

How it works

The following diagram shows the sequences of operations between all components of Driver Routing and Navigation. The Driver SDK communicates location updates to the Fleet Engine backend. The Navigation SDK presents turn by turn directions (and other navigation information) to the driver. Your backend handles all other communications to Fleet Engine.

Sequence diagram for Driver Routing and Navigation processes

How to use driver routing and navigation

The process below demonstrates one way that you can implement Driver Routing and Navigation. For ease of explanation, we present the frontend implementation first. That said, you can start implementation either by integrating the SDKs into your driver app first, or by integrating Fleet Engine with your backend for trip and vehicle creation.

  1. Integrate the Driver SDK into your driver app. The Driver SDK sends real-time location signals to the Fleet Engine service, which is required for the Trip and Order Progress capability. The Driver SDK wraps the Navigation SDK. For details, see the Driver SDK (Android, iOS).

  2. Implement features of the Navigation SDK into your driver app. The Navigation SDK is a library responsible for providing customized navigation capabilities to your drivers, such as turn-by-turn instructions, customized routes, and customized map elements. For full developer documentation, see Navigation with Google Maps.

  3. Manage trips and vehicle state with Fleet Engine. Fleet Engine is the On-demand Rides and Deliveries Solution backend service that handles the interaction between the Driver SDK and your own backend service. Your backend service can communicate with the Fleet Engine by making either REST or gRPC calls. For details, see Getting started with Fleet Engine.

Trip and Order Progress Overview