Areas

An area belongs to a product and is a geographical feature defined by GeoJSON (a Polygon or MultiPolygon). Areas describe where—and, for some types, when—a DRT service operates.

A product uses several types of area, each with a distinct role:

• DRT area. The overall area the DRT service covers. It is maintained by the system and not edited directly; it is the union of the product’s DRT sub areas.
• DRT sub area. The basic building block of a service area. Each one is referenced by a matching configuration, which is how it becomes part of the DRT area. Every product needs at least one.
• Intermodal area. A larger area surrounding the DRT area, in which a passenger can start or end an intermodal journey. At least the origin or the destination of a ride must still lie within the DRT area.
• Vehicle operation area. An area attached to a vehicle, used by autonomous vehicles to describe the map data available to each vehicle. A vehicle can have several, or none.
• Served area and unserved area. Time-dependent filters, defined with recurrence rules, applied to incoming ride requests. A served area requires a request to fall inside it, in both space and time, to be matched; an unserved area is a negative filter—requests inside it, in space and time, are not served, although a passenger may still book a ride if they are willing to walk to a serviceable location. Both are independent of vehicle plannings and matching configurations.

Areas are distinct from two related concepts:

• Zones partition the product area for pricing and blacklisted travel combinations; they do not define where the service operates.
• Restricted areas are regions that vehicles may not drive through—routing avoids them entirely. An unserved area, by contrast, only prevents pickup and drop-off; vehicles may still drive through it.

For creating and managing areas in the UI—including their GeoJSON, visualization, and recurrence rules—see Service areas in ioki Operator or Areas in Control Center.