Add new routing profile: Inline Skating / Small Wheels (Skate, Longboard, Scooter, etc.)

[stefhimself]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Feature/Enhancement Proposal

It would be really useful if openrouteservice offered a dedicated routing profile for Inline Skating / Small-Wheeled devices, such as:

• Inline skates
• Skateboards
• Longboards / Freeboards
• Kick-Scooters / Trottinettes
• Other small-wheel urban mobility devices

None of the existing profiles (cycling-*, foot-*, driving-car) properly represent this use case:

Existing profile	Why it doesn’t fit
foot-walking	blocks roads, ignores surface smoothness
cycling-regular	excludes many footpaths and shared paths
cycling-road	rejects non-asphalt cycleways, still allows fast roads
driving-car	completely ignores shared paths, footways, cycleways

Inline-style mobility has mixed access rules:

• ✅ allowed on footpaths, cycleways and normal streets (legal status varies by country)
• ✅ smooth asphalt surface required (no gravel, cobblestone, grass, sand, stairs)
• ✅ speed is between walking and cycling
• ❌ avoid stairs, rough trails, broken surfaces, unpaved tracks, cobblestone, motorway tunnels

This group is growing worldwide, and no routing API currently offers a proper profile. openrouteservice would be the first major provider to support it natively, and many other apps could benefit.

Additional context

We are developers of RideMySpots (https://ridemyspots.com), a community-driven map for skaters. We recently migrated from OSRM to openrouteservice and now rely on the Directions API. A dedicated “Inline Skating / Small Wheels” profile would allow correct routing for a large and growing user base (skaters, longboarders, scooter riders, etc.).

Possible Implementation

• Base on either cycling-regular or foot-walking, but unlock both road + cycleway + footway access
• Add surface filtering (asphalt, paved, concrete only)
• Penalize or block: gravel, cobblestone, unpaved, sand, steps
• Lower max speed than cycling, higher than walking
• Optional: bonus for cycleway=track or smoothness=good/very_good

If custom_model alone is not sufficient (because of access rules), a new encoder or hybrid profile might be required. We are happy to contribute testing, feedback, sample GPX datasets and real-world validation.

Forum Topic Link

https://ask.openrouteservice.org

[aoles]

Thanks a lot for reaching out and for the detailed description of the problem ❤️

This is indeed a very interesting use case 🛴 🛹 🛼 🤯 I totally agree that the combination of distinctive access rules, strong surface dependency, and a specific average speed makes it difficult to model such a scenario with the existing profiles, even using the custom model feature.

It's awesome that you're offering your help with testing and validating 🚀 Could you perhaps also find someone to handle the actual implementation? 🙏 That would be really fantastic, given our long backlog of feature requests, bugs, tasks, and other work.. 😅

Cheers,
Andrzej