Bing speeds up driving directions

Microsoft has completed a big update that speeds up their driving directions “routing engine” for Bing Maps. The new routining engine is double the speed of the last. Additionally, Bing Maps has added new features like being able to track 3 routes in one request. Also, the alternate routes component can be found in their API as well.

Bing Maps previously used a routing algorithm named Dijkstra’s algorithm. They replaced it. The new routing algorithm was creatively named “Customizable Route Planning” or “CRP” for short.

Taking a quote from Bing's community blog:

So, how does it work? Well, it’s 3 major steps: Preprocessing. More preprocessing. Then, real time query calculation. Easy, right?!

The  goal of the CRP algorithm was to compute the shortest path on the continental road networks with arbitrary metrics (cost functions).

• turn costs
• enabling real-time queries
• incorporating a new metric in a few seconds---fast enough to support real-time traffic updates and personalized optimization functions