Developer

Vector Flow Tiles

Service version: 1
Last edit: 2023.09.28
TomTom Orbis Maps

Important notes:

Purpose

The Traffic API Vector Flow Tiles endpoint provides data on zoom levels ranging from 0 to 22.

  • For zoom level 0, the world is displayed on a single tile.
  • At zoom level 22, the world is divided into 244 tiles. See the Zoom Levels and Tile Grid.

The service delivers traffic flow data packaged in a vector representation of squared sections called vector tiles.

  • Each tile includes a pre-defined collection of road shapes with traffic flow data.
  • The format of the tile is formally described using the protobuf schema.

It can show both the current speed of traffic on different road segments, and the difference between current speed and the free-flow speed on the road segment.

Tiles resolution

Road geometry is stored as coordinates in the range of 0-4095. Coordinates (0,0) define the top-left corner of the tile.

Vector format

The Vector format is a binary format created by using Google Protocol Buffers to serialize the data according to this defined vector schema.

  • The data is mapped to a protobuf layer called "Traffic flow".
  • Besides the protobuf layers, the protobuf tags are also used to further describe the traffic.
  • The protobuf tags are split into two categories: default and on-demand.
    • The default tags are used unless they are filtered out by the tags request parameter.
    • The on-demand tags are used only if they were added by the tags request parameter.

Currently, the following Traffic flow tags are used.

Default tags

TagDescription

road_category
string

The tag value describes the road category.
Allowed values:

  • motorway
  • motorway_link
  • trunk
  • trunk_link
  • primary
  • primary_link
  • secondary
  • secondary_link
  • tertiary
  • tertiary_link
  • street
  • service
  • track

road_subcategory
string

The tag presence indicates if the road has a subcategory. Not all road categories have subcategories.
Allowed values:

  • For the street road category:

    • unclassified
    • residential
    • living_street

  • For the service road category:

    • parking
    • driveway

relative_speed
double

The tag value indicates the speed relative to free-flow traffic.
Allowed values: Fractional value is 0.00 - 1.00

left_hand_traffic
boolean

The tag presence indicates if the road has left-hand traffic. If the tag is not present the road has right-hand traffic.
Allowed value: true

road_closure
boolean

The tag presence indicates if the road is closed to traffic. If the tag is not present the road is not closed and is passable.
Allowed value: true

On-demand tags

TagDescription

absolute_speed
double

The tag value indicates the absolute speed in kmph (kilometers per hour).
Allowed values: Absolute value is greater than or equal to 0.

part_of_two_way_road
boolean

The tag presence indicates if the traffic is part of a two-way road (two different geometries, each with a value for one side). If the tag is not present, the flow covers the whole one-way road.
Allowed value: true

openlr
string

The OpenLR code describing the flow section.
Allowed value: text

Request data

HTTPS method: GET

  • Constants and parameters enclosed in curly brackets { } must be replaced with their values.
  • Please see the following Request parameters section with the required and optional parameters tables for their values. The generic request format is as follows.
get
URL request format
https://{baseURL}/maps/orbis/traffic/tile/flow/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.{format}?apiVersion=1&key={Your_API_Key}
get
URL request example
https://api.tomtom.com/maps/orbis/traffic/tile/flow/5/4/8.pbf?apiVersion=1&key={Your_API_Key}
get
curl command request example
curl 'https://api.tomtom.com/maps/orbis/traffic//tile/flow/5/4/8.pbf?apiVersion=1&key={Your_API_Key}'

Request parameters

These elements are used in calls to generate all vector tile layers.

  • Required parameters must be used or the call will fail.
  • Parameters and values are case-sensitive.
  • Optional parameters may be used.
Required parametersDescription

baseURL string

The base URL for calling TomTom services.
Value: api.tomtom.com

zoom
integer

The zoom level of a tile to be rendered.
Value: 0...22

x
integer

The x coordinate of a tile on the zoom grid.
Value: 0...2zoom -1

y
integer

The y coordinate of a tile on the zoom grid.
Value: 0...2zoom -1

format
string

The format of the response.
Value: pbf (Protocolbuffer Binary Format)

key
string

An API Key valid for the requested service.
Value: Your valid API Key.

Optional parametersDescription

roadCategoryFilter
string

This filter allows the choice of types of road categories to be included in the response. The filter narrows down the road categories available at a particular zoom level. Multiple values are supported and should be separated by a comma.
Default value: all road categories
Allowed values:

  • motorway
  • motorway_link
  • trunk
  • trunk_link
  • primary
  • primary_link
  • secondary
  • secondary_link
  • tertiary
  • tertiary_link
  • street
  • service
  • track

tags
array

The list of the values representing the available tags in the tile.
Default value: road_category,road_subcategory,left_hand_traffic,road_closure,relative_speed
Allowed values:

  • road_category
  • road_subcategory
  • left_hand_traffic
  • road_closure
  • relative_speed
  • absolute_speed
  • part_of_two_way_road
  • openlr

By default, only the default tags are attached to the tile geometry. See Vector format for details.

  • Each value in the list must be separated by a comma.
  • The parameter behaves as a filter, narrowing down the list of tags enclosed in each tile.
  • The fewer tags chosen, the smaller the tile size because of better geometry merging.

Value: Comma-separated list.

apiVersion integer

Contains a version of the API to call. Value: The current version is 1.

Request headers

Required headers

Description

TomTom-Api-Version

Contains a version of the API to call. Value: The current version is 1.

Optional headersDescription
Accept-Encoding

Contains the content encoding (usually a compression algorithm), that the client is able to understand.
Value: gzip

If-None-Match

Contains an identifier for a specific version of a resource. The server will send back the requested resource with a 200 HTTP status code, only if it doesn't have an ETag matching the given one.
Value: string

Tracking-ID

Specifies an identifier for the request.

  • It can be used to trace a call.

  • The value must match the regular expression '^[a-zA-Z0-9-]{1,100}$'.

  • An example of the format that matches this regular expression is a UUID (e.g., 9ac68072-c7a4-11e8-a8d5-f2801f1b9fd1).

  • For details check RFC 4122.

  • If specified, it is replicated in the Tracking-ID response header.

  • It is only meant to be used for support and does not involve tracking of you or your users in any form.

Value: string

Response data

Successful response

The Traffic Vector Flow Tiles API endpoint, for a single request, returns a binary response body which must be deserialized by client code generated by the Google Protocol Buffers compiler.

The following examples use a simple textual representation of the serialized binary vector tile data to illustrate the response content.

get
Request example
https://api.tomtom.com/maps/orbis/traffic/tile/flow/17/64989/42178.pbf?apiVersion=1&key={Your_API_Key}
Response example
1layer: 0
2    name: Traffic flow
3    version: 2
4    extent: 4096
5    feature: 0
6      id: (none)
7      geomtype: linestring
8      geometry:
9        LINESTRING[count=3](3002 -409,2964 1292,2842 2382)
10        LINESTRING[count=3](2842 2382,2964 1292,3002 -409)
11      properties:
12        road_category="primary" [string]
13        realtive_speed=0 [double]
14        left_hand_traffic=1 [bool]
15    feature: 1
16      id: (none)
17      geomtype: linestring
18      geometry:
19        LINESTRING[count=8](-409 656,-108 810,1260 1620,1832 1914,2842 2382,3792 2644,4400 2770,4505 2783)
20      properties:
21        road_category="primary" [string]
22        relative_speed=0.7 [double]
23        left_hand_traffic=1 [bool]
24    feature: 2
25      id: (none)
26      geomtype: linestring
27      geometry:
28        LINESTRING[count=10](4505 2766,4418 2752,3882 2660,3406 2552,2920 2430,2700 2308,2276 2114,1952 1958,940 1430,-409 648)
29      properties:
30        road_category="secondary" [string]
31        relative_speed=0.77 [double]
32        left_hand_traffic=1 [bool]
33    feature: 3
34      id: (none)
35      geomtype: linestring
36      geometry:
37        LINESTRING[count=7](2842 2382,2806 2752,2826 2932,3062 3494,3528 3882,4122 4366,4222 4505)
38        LINESTRING[count=7](4222 4505,4122 4366,3528 3882,3062 3494,2826 2932,2806 2752,2842 2382)
39      properties:
40        road_category="primary" [string]
41        relative_speed=1 [double]
42        left_hand_traffic=1 [bool]

Error response

The Traffic Vector Flow Tiles API endpoint for an invalid single request returns a response body in JSON format.

Error response field structure

FieldDescription

detailedError
object

Main object of the error response.

code
string

One of a server-defined set of error codes.

message
string

A human-readable description of the error code.
Error response example - JSON
1{
2  "detailedError": {
3    "code": "INVALID_REQUEST",
4    "message": "Invalid zoom value. Allowed values are <0,22>."
5  }
6}

Response codes

CodeMeaning & possible causes
200

OK

400

Bad request:

  • The combination of layer, type, and query parameters is not supported.

  • zoom n is out of range [0,22]: The requested zoom level is out of the possible range.

  • x n is out of range [0,2 zoom -1]: The requested x coordinate is out of the possible range.

  • y n is out of range [0,2 zoom -1]: The requested y coordinate is out of the possible range.

403

Forbidden: The supplied API Key is not valid for this request.

405

Method Not Allowed: The provided HTTP request method is known by the server, but is not supported by the target resource.

429

Too Many Requests: Too many requests were sent in a given amount of time for the supplied API Key.

500

Internal Server Error: There is a problem with the TomTom Traffic Vector Flow Tiles API endpoint.

503

Service currently unavailable.

596

Service Not Found: Unknown version of the service.

Response headers

The following table lists HTTP response headers of particular interest to clients of the Traffic API Vector Flow Tiles endpoint.

HeaderDescription
Access-Control-Allow-Origin

Indicates that cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) is allowed.
Value: * universal.

Allow

Lists the set of supported HTTP methods. The header is sent in case a 405 HTTP response code is returned.
Value: GET, HEAD

Content-Encoding

Indicates which encodings were applied to the response body.
Value: gzip

Content-Length

Contains information about the size of the response body.
Value: decimal number

Content-Type

Indicates the media type of the resource returned.
Value: image/pbf

Date

Contains the date and time when the message was originated.
Value: http-date

ETag

Contains an identifier for a specific version of resource.
Value: W/"2fdbd61f30456"

Expires

Contains the date after which the response is considered outdated.
Value: http-date

Tracking-ID

An identifier for the request.

  • If the Tracking-ID header was specified in the request, it is replicated in the response.

  • Otherwise, it is generated automatically by the service. For details check RFC 4122.

  • It is only meant to be used for support and does not involve tracking of you or your users in any form.

Value: string