Freely configurable routing profile

A major reason for the limited usefulness of most bike routing software is that routing preferences are a personal issue. Not even will MTB and racing cyclist never agree on common routing preferences, also the same people will have different preferences for day and night, dry and wet weather, etc. The only solution for that problem is the use of a freely configurable cost function that can easily be adapted to personal needs. This is far more flexible compared to a set of static functions with a fixed set of configuration variables.

To make that point somewhat clearer: there are other routers that are highly configurable, look at routino for an example. However, these are one-dimensional parameter sets that do not allow to handle arbitrary correlation. BRouter’s configuration is different. It is more a scripting language that allows you to program the cost function instead of just configuring it. E.g. a non-graded track is generally not a good track. But if it has a surface=asphalt tag, it probably is. On the other hand, a grade5-track with surface=asphalt is primarily a grade5-track and you should not ignore that. Such logic is not implementable in one-dimensional parameter sets.

See some sample profiles provided for the online router.

See the trekking-profile trekking.brf as the reference-profile with some explanations on the meaning of this script.

See the Profile Developers Guide for a technical reference.