Routing service: directions, service areas, closest facility, network analysis

[mikemcdougall]

Context

Esri's Network Analyst is a primary reason organizations stay on ArcGIS. Logistics, utilities, emergency services, and fleet management all require routing. pgRouting on PostGIS provides the analytical engine — Honua needs to expose it as clean API endpoints.

📱 Client SDK Integration: See honua-io/honua-mobile#15 for mobile navigation and routing SDK.

Scope (Server Infrastructure)

Core Operations Backend

• Directions: point-to-point and multi-stop routing with turn-by-turn instructions
• Route optimization: traveling salesman / vehicle routing problem (reorder stops)
• Service area / isochrones: drive-time or drive-distance polygons from a point
• Closest facility: find N nearest facilities from incident points
• OD cost matrix: origin-destination travel cost matrix for site selection

API Compatibility

• GeoServices REST NAServer compatibility:
  • solve (route)
  • solveServiceArea
  • solveClosestFacility
• OGC API Routes (emerging spec)

Network Data Management

• pgRouting backbone: Dijkstra, A*, contraction hierarchies
• OSM network import: OpenStreetMap road network → pgRouting topology
• Custom network import: user-provided road/path networks with cost attributes
• Network dataset management: Admin UI for network topology building and validation
• Barriers/restrictions: avoid areas, one-way streets, turn restrictions, time-of-day costs

Advanced Server Features (Pro)

• Real-time traffic: pluggable traffic provider integration (TomTom, HERE, Mapbox)
• Fleet routing: multi-vehicle with capacity constraints, time windows, depot returns
• Network tracing: upstream/downstream tracing for utility networks
• Route caching: Intelligent caching of route calculations
• Load balancing: Distributed routing computation across multiple nodes

Server Configuration

• Performance tuning: Connection pooling, query optimization, spatial indexing
• Provider abstraction: Pluggable traffic data sources
• Rate limiting: Per-user/per-API-key routing quotas
• Audit logging: Route request tracking for billing and analytics

Edition Gating

• Community: none (routing requires network infrastructure management)
• Pro: directions, service areas, closest facility, OD matrix, OSM network import
• Enterprise: fleet routing, network tracing, custom traffic providers

Non-Goals (Server)

• Client SDK components (see linked mobile issue)
• Mobile navigation UI
• Turn-by-turn voice guidance
• GPS tracking and route deviation

References

• pgRouting: https://pgrouting.org/
• Esri NAServer REST API spec
• Epic: Geoprocessing framework — server-side spatial analysis and task orchestration #360 Geoprocessing framework (routing tasks can also be GP operations)