pgRouting — The Complete Guide: Routing and Network Analysis Inside a PostGIS Database
pgRouting turns a PostGIS database into a network analysis engine. The road, pipe or cable network already sits in the database, and instead of exporting it to another program you run path algorithms on it directly in a query.
pgRouting
pgRouting Project (OSGeo)
An extension to PostGIS and PostgreSQL for routing and shortest-path calculations on road and infrastructure networks.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Shortest path — Dijkstra and A*, including bi-directional variants.
- Alternative routes — the K shortest paths between two points.
- Distance matrices — Johnson and Floyd-Warshall for all pairs of nodes.
- Travelling salesman — the optimal visiting order between points.
- Turn restrictions — routes that respect banned turns at junctions.
What sets it apart
Each edge cost is computed in an SQL query at run time, so it can be changed by travel time, road class or a closed link — and the result reflects the current data immediately. The downside: you need PostgreSQL, PostGIS and SQL skills, and preparing a network layer with clean topology is the user’s job.
Related tools
For street-network analysis in Python — OSMnx. For a fast routing server on OpenStreetMap data — OSRM. For public transport planning — OpenTripPlanner.
PostGIS
PostGIS Project Steering Committee (OSGeo)
An extension to the PostgreSQL database that adds storage, indexing and analysis of geospatial data through SQL queries.
Get it from the vendor
OSMnx
Geoff Boeing
Download and analyse street networks from OpenStreetMap in Python — routing, connectivity, accessibility and network metrics.
Get it from the vendorOSRM — Open Source Routing Machine
OSRM Project
A very fast road network routing engine — routes, distance matrices and service areas.
Get it from the vendorOpenTripPlanner
OpenTripPlanner Project
A multimodal routing engine — journey planning and public transport accessibility analysis.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
pgRouting suits transport engineers and infrastructure analysts who already work with PostGIS and want flexible routing without leaving the database. Completely free, including for commercial use.