Google maps appears to have some information on car ferrys; certainly their route and probably the time they will take. So Google maps can make an intelligent routing decision including using a car ferry.
It sounds like the routing you are interested in is for cargo; you can't just drive your truck onto a ship that travels (on a regular schedule) from Poole to Santander. So you'll need to provide that intelligence. (That's the exciting part!) How much does it cost? How long does it take? How regular is it? How much is involved in loading and unloading (which probably depends on the equipment at each end, AND on the actual cargo being moved.) It's pretty straightforward to then just draw a straight line between Poole and Santander, and attach that to the land routes laid out by Google Maps. (The actual route by ship won't be a straight line, but you probably could never get information on the exact course. Nor would you care.) In the API, you would specify one route from the land origin to the shipping port, and another from the arrival port to the destination. One thing to keep in mind about moving real cargo is road restrictions. I don't think Google Maps keeps information on roads closed to, say, hazardous cargo. And I don't think it has information on bridge heights, something you'll need to know for certain transport! Good luck! - jeff On Mar 11, 7:02 am, John Fannon <ultramontan...@googlemail.com> wrote: > Hi I am new to google maps api and it's like Aladin's cave - so much > interesting stuff. > > I am interested in studying how short sea shipping can be an advantage > over the land route. For example, if I want to send a truck from > Birmingham to Madrid, Google maps will show me route quite easily via > Dover and Calais. > > But if I want to travel via the port of Poole or Portsmouth and take a > ship to Santander in Northern Spain, Google maps doesnt envisage a > long sea route. It will find a route Birmingham - Poole, then choose > Cherbourg as its cross channel destination. Then it will draw the > route between Cherbourg - Santander then on to Madrid. It looks quite > odd. > > Now there is enough information in there for my purposes, Google maps > gives me the distance between Birmingham and Poole and between > Santander and Madrid. What I dont need and I dont want is any > reference to the Poole - Cherbourg and Cherbourg - Santander legs. > > Can they be suppressed - i.e. not displayed on the map? > > alternatively is there a way of specifying a sea route between two way > points. > > I'd be grateful for any views. > > John -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps JavaScript API v3" group. To post to this group, send email to google-maps-js-api-v3@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-maps-js-api-v3+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-js-api-v3?hl=en.
