Google maps? Google earth? something else?
February 1, 2022 2:17 PM   Subscribe

I have a list of addresses (they are transit stops). It is a very long list. There is a specific order to this list. I need to figure out how far away each stop is from the next one on the list.

There are a lot. I would like to upload my addresses to google maps or something, have all the stops there (I've done this part) and have google maps (or another service) tell me the distances between a to b and b to c and c to d and so forth. So far, I have been unable to make this happen.

I want to avoid sitting here for hours using the ruler tool, which isn't accurate enough for my purposes. I'd also like to avoid sitting here for hours doing google driving directions from a to b and b to c and c to do and so forth.

Can I????
posted by millipede to Travel & Transportation (13 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
You can do it with R using the geosphere package function distm to create a distance matrix.
Or convince someone else to do it for you in R, which would be a service.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 2:32 PM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


If you have the addresses in with mapcustomizer.com with the "bulk entry" tool on the right. One address per line.

But that doesn't do the pathing. :-/
posted by kschang at 2:40 PM on February 1, 2022


Response by poster: I did mapcustomizer but I don’t see a bulk way to spit out the distances.
posted by millipede at 2:43 PM on February 1, 2022


Hmmm... I assume there's more than 10 stops since Google maps stops at 10.

There's a hack to get more stops, up to the limit of the URL max length, but it's a bit more work.
posted by kschang at 2:47 PM on February 1, 2022


Response by poster: Over 300 stops but not all one route. I’ll need to do whatever it is I do about 20 times. All are more than 10.
posted by millipede at 2:52 PM on February 1, 2022


Some of the bicycle ride and run type planning tools will do this type of thing (some examples here). You would enter the transit stops as "waypoints" or similar along the route and then the planner will spit out a cue sheet that tells you the exact distance of each waypoint along the route. On a bicycle ride, people usually want to know how far from one waypoint to the next and how far from the starting point to any given waypoint - so most such programs have this type of functionality one way or another.

For instance you could do this on RideWithGPS by entering the route, creating a "custom cue" on the route at each transit stop, saving the route, and then exporting as a '.cvs' file. The .cvs file will list each waypoint and turn along the route, including your transit stops but also left and right turns etc, along with the distance of each point from the start in 100ths of a mile. Then you will have to open the .cvs file in Excel or Google Sheets to narrow it down to just the transit stop waypoints and do some subtraction to get the distance between each pair of points.

So still some work but maybe less than other ways.

Also the accuracy is in 100ths of a mile, which may or may not be enough for what you are looking for (1/100 of a mile is roughly 50 feet).
posted by flug at 3:07 PM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


Are you looking for as the crow flies distances or road distances?
posted by soelo at 3:22 PM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]


Response by poster: Road.
posted by millipede at 4:38 PM on February 1, 2022


If you’re able to script, Google provides an HTTP API for this sort of thing.

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distance-matrix/overview
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:16 PM on February 1, 2022


Another R recommendation, using the googleway package.

I actually have a script open in R right now that probably does about 90% of what you need. (I was using it to answer this question, for myself). If you're able to share with me a snippet of the file you have I could see if I could tweak it to do what you need?

Or just run your file through my modified version if you don't want to get set up with R.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:36 PM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]


This will be slow but manageable: Google MyMaps. One map can hold ten layers and after loading your stops into one layer, you can add nine more routes. Each route can hold ten stops, but overlapping the last stop on one route with the first on the next one means you can have 82 stops on one map. Once you add each layer, you go into the step-by-step directions and it will give you the distance between each stop.
posted by soelo at 6:46 PM on February 1, 2022


Ok, just modified the script I had.
It's a little messy, because it's originally for a different purpose, but it works.
It takes a list of addresses in a single column excel file and spits out OD pairs with driving distances in metres.

(edit, all of the special symbols in R are the same as those in HTML, so it just freaks out. I'll go see if there is a code tag or something. )
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:56 PM on February 1, 2022


Are you willing to pay money? I think that the paid versions of tools like SpeedyRoute and Circuit will do this.
posted by mskyle at 4:47 AM on February 2, 2022


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