Route and Times for Property Portals

Use Case

Allow users to set their commute preferences to locations they care about
Enrich each result with the individual user's travel times and routes

Value

Increase conversions by showing more relevant information on each listing
Capture user commute preferences to build a richer profile for relevant notifications and alerts

Customer Case study

300% increase in conversions
More relevant results for users
Reduced agent churn with higher quality leads

Read customer story

Ben Amos

Senior Product Manager at Zoopla

“With TravelTime, we help users much earlier in their property search journey, providing a more personalised discovery process based on what they need to be near, how long they want to travel, and by what transport mode.”

Typical flow

Sending requests

Request type	POST
Host	api.traveltimeapp.com
Endpoint	/v4/time-filter
Authentication	Application-Id Api-Key

You can find your Application-Id and Api-Key by logging into your TravelTime account.

Or if you don't already have an account, then sign up for free access below.

Request body


{
  "locations": [
    {
      "id": "User Input Location",
      "coords": {
        "lat": 51.508930,
        "lng": -0.131387
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "Listing Location",
      "coords": {
        "lat": 51.508824,
        "lng": -0.167093
      }
    }
  ],
  "arrival_searches": [
    {
      "id": "Route calculation",
      "arrival_location_id": "Listing Location",
      "departure_location_ids": [
        "User Input Location"
      ],
      "transportation": {
        "type": "public_transport"
      },
      "travel_time": 7200,
      "arrival_time": "2024-10-01T08:00:00",
      "properties": [
        "travel_time",
        "route"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Parameters:

locations - an array containing the IDs and lat-long coordinates of the user's input location and the listing location

arrival_searches - will calculate a route from the user's input location to the listing location

arrival_time - this can either be filled automatically (e.g 9am next Monday), or through some user input (e.g with a 'peak' and 'off-peak' option)

travel_time - set a maximum commute time (up to 4 hours) - a lower value will deliver better performance through lower response times

transportation - taken from the user's chosen transport mode, typically Driving / Public_Transport / Walking / Cycling

properties - include travel_time to retrieve the total journey time, and route for the details of the journey

Response body


  {
    "results": [
      {
        "search_id": "Route calculation",
        "locations": [
          {
            "id": "User Input Location",
            "properties": [
              {
                "travel_time": 1764,
                "route": {
                  "departure_time": "2024-10-01T08:30:36+01:00",
                  "arrival_time": "2024-10-01T08:58:39+01:00",
                  "parts": [
                    {
                      "id": 0,
                      "type": "start_end",
                      "mode": "walk",
                      "directions": "Start your journey 28 meters northeast",
                      "distance": 28,
                      "travel_time": 20,
                      "coords": [
                        {
                          "lat": 51.50893,
                          "lng": -0.131387
                        },
                        {
                          "lat": 51.50914960000015,
                          "lng": -0.13118650000000479
                        }
                      ],
                      "direction": "northeast"
                    },
                    {
                      "id": 1,
                      "type": "road",
                      "mode": "walk",
                      "directions": "Walk 69 meters along Orange Street",
                      "distance": 69,
                      "travel_time": 59,
                      "coords": [
                        {
                          "lat": 51.50914960000015,
                          "lng": -0.13118650000000479
                        },
                        {
                          "lat": 51.508882400000005,
                          "lng": -0.13190779999999896
                        },
                        {
                          "lat": 51.50882940000015,
                          "lng": -0.1320508000000048
                        }
                      ],
                      "road": "Orange Street"
                    },

travel_time - The total journey time

parts - The individual legs of the journey

SDKs

NodeJS

Python

Installation

npm

npm i traveltime-api

This package comes with TypeScript support.

Usage

Client Initialization

Before starting, the package needs to be configured with your account's application ID and Key, which can be found in the TravelTime Developer Portal Dashboard. To create an instance - you will need to create new TravelTimeClient class object with credentials you got from dashboard.

import { TravelTimeClient } from 'traveltime-api';

const travelTimeClient = new TravelTimeClient({
  apiKey: 'YOUR_APP_KEY',
  applicationId: 'YOUR_APP_ID',
});

Time Filter Function


travelTimeClient.timeFilter({
  "locations": [
    {
      "id": "User Input Location",
      "coords": {
        "lat": 51.508930,
        "lng": -0.131387
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "Listing Location",
      "coords": {
        "lat": 51.508824,
        "lng": -0.167093
      }
    }
  ],
  "arrival_searches": [
    {
      "id": "Route calculation",
      "arrival_location_id": "Listing Location",
      "departure_location_ids": [
        "User Input Location"
      ],
      "transportation": {
        "type": "public_transport"
      },
      "travel_time": 7200,
      "arrival_time": "2024-10-01T08:00:00",
      "properties": [
        "travel_time",
        "route"
      ]
    }
  ]
}).then((data) => console.log(data))
  .catch((e) => console.error(e));

Installation

Install Travel Time Python SDK in a virtualenv using pip. virtualenv is a tool to create isolated Python environments.

virtualenv allows to install Travel Time Python SDK without needing system install permissions, and without clashing with the installed system dependencies.

Linux/Mac

pip3 install virtualenv
virtualenv <your-env>
source <your-env>/bin/activate
<your-env>/bin/pip install traveltimepy

Windows

pip install virtualenv
virtualenv <your-env>
<your-env>\Scripts\activate
<your-env>\Scripts\pip.exe install traveltimepy

Sdk set up

In order to authenticate with Travel Time API, you will have to supply the Application Id and Api Key.

Takes:

app_id: str - Application Id
api_key: str - Api Key
limit_per_host: int - Number of simultaneous connections to one host.
rate_limit: int - Number of searches which can be made in a time window.
time_window: int - Duration, in seconds, of the time period in which to limit the rate.
retry_attempts: int - Number of retries for failed requests.
host: str - TravelTime host, default value is api.traveltimeapp.com.
timeout: int - Maximum session time until timeout. Default value is 300 (5 minutes).

from traveltimepy import TravelTimeSdk

sdk = TravelTimeSdk(app_id="YOUR_APP_ID", api_key="YOUR_APP_KEY")

Time Filter Function


import asyncio

from traveltimepy import Location, Coordinates, PublicTransport, Property, TravelTimeSdk


async def main():
    sdk = TravelTimeSdk("YOUR_APP_ID", "YOUR_APP_KEY")

    locations = [
        Location(id="User Input Location", coords=Coordinates(lat=51.508930, lng=-0.131387)),
        Location(id="Listing Location", coords=Coordinates(lat=51.508824, lng=-0.167093)),
    ]

    results = await sdk.time_filter_async(
        locations=locations,
        search_ids={
            "User Input Location": ["Listing Location"],
        },
        departure_time="2024-10-01T08:00:00",
        travel_time=7200,
        transportation=PublicTransport(type="bus"),
        properties=[Property.TRAVEL_TIME, Property.ROUTE],
    )

    print(results)

asyncio.run(main())

FAQs

What is the performance like?

The average response time for a route is 500ms.

How accurate is your data?

Our dedicated Data Team ensures our data is always fully up to date, and our Public Transport timetables are updated at least once a week. We build our Driving models from the ground up to replicate the drive times from Google Maps as closely as possible, and you can run benchmarks to compare our results to other providers using our Github Comparison Tool.

How reliable is the service?

Our APIs never drop below 99.99% uptime - view the details on our live status page.

Where do you have coverage?

We support driving, walking and cycling in 235 countries globally, with public transport data in over 110 countries. We publish exactly what public transport data we have in our interactive Coverage Tool.

How much will this cost?

We never charge based on usage. Instead we offer unlimited usage licences for a fixed monthly fee. The only thing you need to decide is the maximum Requests Per Minute (RPM) you need.

Can I test out the endpoint for myself?

You can test the full functionality of the Routes endpoint in our API Playground. Once you've signed up for a TravelTime account, you can also use your API key for an unlimited 2 week trial.