Geofencing API Documentation

What is TomTom's Geofencing service?

TomTom's Geofencing service is intended to define virtual barriers on real geographical locations. Together with the location of an object, you can determine whether that object is located within, outside, or close to a predefined geographical area.

Any object that has connectivity can be geofenced. It can be:

• A person
• A vehicle
• A package
• A telephone

Libraries of fences and objects

For Geofencing to work, you need to create your own library of fences.

• Fences can be arranged into projects for easier administration.
• Fences can have multiple user-defined attributes.
• Fences can be of any shape or size.

You can also create a library of your objects and optionally define their attributes.

Location report

A location report for a given radius contains a list of fences that:

• The object is in.
• The object is outside of.

Regardless of the selected radius, a user will always receive the nearest outside fence, if available.

The following features are included in the Geofencing API.

1. A Geofencing service available via the developer.tomtom.com online Geofencing API.
2. Geofencing configuration that is securely stored by TomTom in the cloud.
3. Circles, polygons, corridors, and two-point rectangle fences with labels.
4. Objects reported inside or outside of a fence.
5. The distance from an object to the nearest border of a fence.

Current limits include:

• 1k objects
• 10k projects
• 1k fences in each project
• 1k vertices per polygon fence
• Transition history is kept as active data for 3 months.
• Transition history is kept as a cold archive 6 months after the active period.

To change any of these limits, please contact your TomTom licensing assistant.

There are no surface size limits on polygons used as fences, except precision. Coordinates with difference smaller than 0.000001 degree between them are indistinguishable.
Surface size of polygons has little impact on response speed, but the number of vertices impacts speed significantly. To receive response faster - one should consider simplifying polygons used as fences.

Services with endpoints

Location History API

• The Geofencing API and Location History API share Objects when both are on the same account.
  • Each API has access to a view of an Object that is relevant for the given API.
  • In the Geofencing API view, the name, defaultProject, and properties fields are available for an Object.
• The Geofencing API and Location History API share the consentForStoringObjectsPositionsHistory setting.
  • When this setting is set to true both services can save an Objects' positions.
  • After sending a position through the Geofencing API and triggering a transition calculation, the latest previous position is used, no matter from which service it has been sent.

Configuration

Your API and Admin Keys

You need to have two keys to work with Geofencing:

• An API Key: This allows you to work with any TomTom Maps API, including Geofencing.
• An Admin Key: This is used by Geofencing to administer (create, edit, delete) your projects, fences and objects.

Getting started

Follow these steps to start working with the Geofencing API:

Step 1. Register for an API Key

This key will let you read data from the service and request reports. In addition, it will let you register for an Admin Key.

Step 2. Register an Admin Key

To register for an Admin Key, use the Configuration service "Register Admin Key" endpoint. An Admin Key is used to manage objects/fences/projects within the Geofencing API.

Register for your Admin Key using this URL:

URL format

https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/register?key=Your_API_Key
{
  “secret”: “your_secret”
}

or use the curl command:

curl command

curl -XPOST "Content-type: application/json" -d
'{
   “secret”: “your_secret”
 }'
'https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/register?key=Your_API_Key'

The secret has to be between 10 and 30 characters. The secret is a password used to regenerate a stolen or lost Admin Key. It will not be asked for in any other circumstances.

The endpoint returns a generated Admin Key. For example:

{
  "adminKey": "ooCP41LoslEhThwNPyCFjtTsgCDyJgTaoz9JJFpVJvW8MjA3"
}

You should save your Admin Key for administrative calls. You can fully manage your account in the Geofencing API when you have both the API Key and Admin Key.

Step 3. Create a Project

Fences must be added to at least one project, so you need to create a project before creating fences. A Project is created using the Project service "Add new project" endpoint.

URL formt

https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/projects?key=Your_API_Key&adminKey=Your_Admin_Key
{ 
  "name": "A unique project name"
}

curl command

curl -XPOST "Content-type: application/json" -d 
'{
   "name": "A unique project name"
 }'
'https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/projects?key=Your_API_Key&adminKey=Your_Admin_Key'

The endpoint returns project details including a project id.

{
  "id": "57dc2cad-85a3-439a-8224-2730d7822133",
  "name": "A unique project name"
}

This project id is required for future calls (i.e., adding a fence to a project).

Step 4. Creating fences

Fences can be created and added to a project using the Fence service "Add new fence to a project" endpoint.

URL format

https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/projects/projectId?key=Your_API_Key&adminKey=Your_Admin_Key
{
  "name": "Flemish diamond"
  "type": "Polygon",
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [3.55, 51.08],
      [4.36, 50.73],
      [4.84, 50.85],
      [4.45, 51.30],
      [3.55, 51.08]
    ]
  ]
}

curl command

curl -XPOST "Content-type: application/json" -d '
{
  "name": "Flemish diamond"
  "type": "Polygon",
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [3.55, 51.08],
      [4.36, 50.73],
      [4.84, 50.85],
      [4.45, 51.30],
      [3.55, 51.08]
    ]
  ]
}'
'https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/projects/projectId?key=Your_API_Key&adminKey=Your_Admin_Key'

For your convenience, TomTom has a web app to create your fences which can be downloaded "geofences-creator" from our GitHub repository.

The endpoint returns fence details.

{
  "id": "e33f7aee-2e86-4485-af82-631debd73d86",
  "name": "Flemish diamond",
  "type": "Feature",
  "geometry": {
    "type": "Polygon",
    "coordinates": [
      [
        [3.55, 51.08],
        [4.36, 50.73],
        [4.84, 50.85],
        [4.45, 51.30],
        [3.55, 51.08]
      ]
    ]
  },
  "properties": {}
}

Step 5. Creating objects

For each entity to be geofenced (person, vehicle, package, telephone, etc.) an object can be created using the Object service "Add new object" endpoint.

Note: Creating an object currently is not mandatory to get a report based on a position. In future releases we will include support for an object's history where creating an object is required to use the history feature.

URL format

https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/objects?key=Your_API_Key&adminKey=Your_Admin_Key
{
  "name": "A Volvo Car"
}

curl command

curl -XPOST "Content-type: application/json" -d 
'{
   "name": "A Volvo Car"
 }'
'https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/objects?key=Your_API_Key&adminKey=Your_Admin_Key'

Step 6. Reporting

Pass an object location to the Report service "Geofencing Report request" endpoint to get:

• A list of fences the object is inside of.
• a list of fences the object is outside of.

URL format

https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/report/projectId?key=Your_API_Key&point=lon,lat

curl command

curl 'https://api.tomtom.com/geofencing/1/report/projectId?key=Your_API_Key&point=4.055737,51.030168'

Each Geofencing API user has a Role assigned to them. Roles define activities that a user can perform within the service.

Entities are manageable elements within the Geofencing API.

Rights describe types of actions that a user can perform within the Geofencing API.

Legend to the following data table

(C)reate: an entity can create new projects, fences, objects.

(R)ead: an entity can generate reports, list projects/fences/objects, get details about a project/fence/object.

(U)pdate: an entity can change attributes and properties of projects/fences/objects, and assign a fence to a project

(D)elete: an entity can delete projects/fences/objects, remove a fence relation to a project, or an object relation to a project.