Lane-Level Access Restrictions for Public Transport Routing

HERE map data and the public transport routing engine fully and correctly take lane-level access restrictions into account when planning routes for public transport modes such as buses or taxis.

This article explains why a road segment that is visually rendered as one-way on the map may still be routable in the opposite direction when the transport mode is set to Public Transport or Bus.

The road segment highlighted in Figure 1 is displayed to users and customers as a one‑way street in the south direction.



However, in reality:

In the north direction, the road consists of a single lane only.
This lane is exclusively reserved for buses and taxis.
General traffic is not allowed to use this lane in that direction.

Although the map rendering shows the link as one‑way, the lane-level access characteristics stored in HERE data indicate that public transport vehicles are allowed to travel in the opposite direction.

### Routing Engine Behavior

As a result:

When routing mode is set to Car, the street is treated strictly as a one‑way street in southbound direction. Note: If the route is not displayed after opening the link, please click Send in the bottom‑right corner of the page to trigger route calculation
* When routing mode is set to Taxi or Bus, the routing engine:
+ Recognizes the bus/taxi-only lane
+ Treats the link as bidirectional for the allowed transport modes

Therefore, even if the road appears visually as one‑way, it is correctly considered two‑way by the routing engine for buses and public transport.

This behavior is intentional and expected, and reflects the accurate modeling of real-world lane access restrictions rather than a data or routing error.

Here some additional figures illustrate routing behavior differences for Public Transport (Taxi and Bus) and private car