Routing vs EWS

[Petr_S_CZ]

What is the difference between classic routing and EWS?
Especially in distances and tolls. Can somebody who is using EWS switch to Routing and not notice difference?

[Bernd Welter]

Hello Petr,

whether a change from one API to another one sounds like a proper choice probably requires some more details about the clients usecase and constraints. Feel free to connect them to me.

Let me try to explain the differences between the two APIs by starting to describe the usecase of the EWS (aka "Entfernungswerk Straße"):

• The EWS is a huge database with a set of many thousands of standard relations within Europe. The main purpose is to gather distances for a standard truck profile which are then used for tender management, invoice auditing and credit note procedures, where different parties want to rely on the distances without the need to discuss vehicle parameters and routing options or geometries.
• The primary keys to identify an EWS relation are not arbitrary coordinates but references to so-called nodes which could be based on
  • CITY names (no street or housenumber level!)
  • PORT names
  • BORDER crossings
  Furthermore a version reference such as v2016, v2017, ... LATEST is part of the primary key, too.

  

• So what this kind of reference routing does not cover is
  • Dynamically geocoded coordinates
  • Multi stop routings with more than 2 waypoints
  • Parametrizing of the routing at runtime
  • Detailed response elements such as toll details, CO2 emission, manoeuver lists

  

  All these features are reserved for the Routing API which by the way also offers completely different methods on top:
  • Corridor search / Reachable areas

    

  • ETA calculation (Showcase)

    

• Though on the one hand it seems to lack features compared to Routing API (and Matrix API by the way) the EWS concept comes along with some significant benefits:
  • The stored relation data is based on different annual map versions and so you can gather the reference distance distance in the context of a specific map version, even years after the map was "the actual one". This is important for parties who included the map versions in their contracts with their legal counterparts.
  • Standard Routing request processes data at runtime and often evaluate millions of segments dynamically which has a huge impact on performance and requires map updates every once in a while. The content of the EWS is accessible both through a very fast API or can also be acquired for an import into a clients local database for fastest access.