ORS is a very good tool, however, sometimes OSM data can be lacking (i.e. a trail is not on there) or faulty (e.g. two tracks not connecting properly). It is not always practical to correct the OSM data and wait for OSM to update the map and then wait for ORS to update the maps. Moreover, this may not even always be applicable, like in the case of a grass field that can be crossed to reach another track, for example.
So would it be possible to add a feature that one can create “off-track” sections in a route that are not calculated using tracks in the OSM data, but can just be added for example as straight lines between via points? This way such issues could be bypassed.
If you are querying directly querying the API, you have the ability to use the skip_segments parameter to specify sections of the route that should be skipped in the routing process. For example, if you set the start and end points of the route, and then add via points at the start and end of the area you want to skip, you can then use the skip_segments parameter to skip that segment:
The above would do a route between [52.5, 8.6] and [52.6, 8.5], skip the route between [52.6,8.5] and [52.7,8.4], and then do a route between [52.7,8.4] and [52.8,8.3].
There is unfortunately no way of doing this yet though using the maps client
I’m a bit late with writing about this, but obviously saw already a long while ago that this was added as a feature. Many thanks for that. This has made ORS massively more useful to me. Keep up the great work.
