How to customize walking speed

By default the Routing API assumes a conservative walking speed of 1 m/s. You can see this by checking the summary information in the response.

For example take a look at this 15 km long route:

curl -gX GET 'https://router.hereapi.com/v8/routes?'\
'origin=52.547019,13.328605&'\
'destination=52.541812,13.334422&'\
'return=summary,polyline&'\
'spans=dynamicSpeedInfo&'\
'transportMode=pedestrian&'\
'apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY'

In the response, you can see that the baseSpeed is 1 m/s. The duration (in seconds) is also identical to the length (in meters) due to the route not containing any turnTime:

"sections": [
  {
    ...,
    "summary": {
      "duration": 770,
      "length": 770,
      "baseDuration": 770
    },
    "polyline": "...",
    "spans": [
      {
        "offset": 0,
        "dynamicSpeedInfo": {
          "trafficSpeed": 1,
          "baseSpeed": 1,
          "turnTime": 0
        }
      }
    ],
    "transport": {
      "mode": "pedestrian"
    }
  }
]

Set user-defined walking speed

As not everyone walks at the same pace, you can set the walking speed in the request, by means of the pedestrian[speed] parameter. The following request sets it a less pessimistic walking speed of 1.42 m/s:

curl -gX GET 'https://router.hereapi.com/v8/routes?'\
'origin=52.547019,13.328605&'\
'destination=52.541812,13.334422&'\
'return=summary,polyline&'\
'spans=dynamicSpeedInfo&'\
'transportMode=pedestrian&'\
'pedestrian[speed]=1.42&'\
'apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY'

As you can see, the value of duration is much lower: only 544 s for 770 m. The baseSpeed is increased to 1.42 m/s:

"sections": [
  {
    "summary": {
      "duration": 544,
      "length": 770,
      "baseDuration": 544
    },
    "polyline": "...",
    "spans": [
      {
        "offset": 0,
        "dynamicSpeedInfo": {
          "trafficSpeed": 1.42,
          "baseSpeed": 1.42,
          "turnTime": 0
        }
      }
    ],
    ...
  }
]

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