> Do you say that creating a complete custom map is the best way to do
> this? Street availability can be checked using the normal map using
> some math. How would you display to the user about other users'
> selections? (This is much needed if it can be done in some elegant
> way)

I thought we answered that.  *If* you want to show users all other
selections, and *if* those number in the thousands, then you will need
to do it with tiled overlays to get acceptable performance.  You could
have some server-side code to render your stored data as polylines
onto transparent tiles, not necessarily a complete map with
streetnames, rivers etc.

> I will actually using the directions service only to get the array of
> points which make the path.

Which is not providing "directions" to the end user, and is storing
the directions for some other purpose than simple caching (you would
be using the stored directions to see if some other user has already
selected this route ; and possibly for whatever the "campaign project"
wants).

The other difficulty with using directions is that you will need to
make your own arrangements to check for A-B-C  X-B-C partial
duplications, as you seem to want to avoid those.

It's up to you to design your application.  I can imagine two basic
approaches:

"Make it up as you go along" - allow users to click where they like,
use some service to find route between, compare to any existing stored
routes, and store if okay or reject if not.  This could work well
while the proportion of already-stored to still-possible routes is
small.  You can display what is already selected - but not what
remains available, although a good guide to that is given by the
enderlying "ordinary map"

"Have a complete city model" - keep a dataset of all possible route
sections in the city/country/world.  As users select routes, simply
mark them as selected in your dataset (or reject if already booked).
This will work well when the proportion of routes already selected is
high, makes it easy to avoid double-booking, and makes it possible to
display remaining possible selections.

One of the influencing factors may be if you are really trying to
allow users to select "routes" e.g. one side of the city to the
other ; or if you are wanting users to select individual streets or
parts of streets ; and if you are trying to encourage users to arrange
complete coverage between them.

You don't have access to Google's dataset of streets ; getting
glimpses of it from Directions may not yield the data you want,
depending on your aims.

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