An elegant way to find shortest and fastest route in Google Maps API v3?

Question

I am making a taxi fare calculator. One of the business requirements is that, the company wants the shortest and fastest route options. I know Google directionService by def

Answer 1

First of all, sorry for my solution being in TS, you can easily convert it to JS.

The "avoidhighways" attribute is not there to get the fastest or shortest route, it's there for what the name suggests, avoiding highways.

I've made my own solution by always getting multiple routs with this attribute:

directionsService.route({
            [...]
            provideRouteAlternatives: true
            [...]
         }, (response, status) => {
            if (status === google.maps.DirectionsStatus.OK) {
                var shortest: google.maps.DirectionsResult = this.shortestRoute(response);
                this.directionsDisplay.setDirections(shortest);
                [...]

And I made this function that returns the DirectionsResult with just the one route. In this case it's the shortest, but you can tweek it so it returns what ever route suits your needs.

    shortestRoute = (routeResults: google.maps.DirectionsResult): google.maps.DirectionsResult => {
        var shortestRoute: google.maps.DirectionsRoute = routeResults.routes[0];
        var shortestLength = shortestRoute.legs[0].distance.value;
        for (var i = 1; i < routeResults.routes.length; i++) {
            if (routeResults.routes[i].legs[0].distance.value < shortestLength) {
                shortestRoute = routeResults.routes[i];
                shortestLength = routeResults.routes[i].legs[0].distance.value;
            }
        }
        routeResults.routes = [shortestRoute];
        return routeResults;
    }