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by com.get-instamaps
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Road distance and drive time for journeys

get_road_distances
Read-onlyIdempotent

Road miles, km and drive time for up to 100 journeys per call, on our own routing (Great Britain and US roads, normal traffic, no live traffic). Ends can be addresses, UK postcodes or districts (CO10), US addresses, or lat/lng. Every journey also gets the straight-line miles; a journey with no road route (Northern Ireland, an island without a bridge) is measured in a straight line and says so in note. The summary has the total road miles (for mileage claims) and the total with straight-line journeys included.

Input Schema

NameRequiredDescriptionDefault
regionNoOptional; worked out from the postcodes when left out.
sourceNoInstead of typing rows: { sheet: "<Google Sheets link>", tab?: "Sites" } (shared with the InstaMaps service account, or viewable by anyone with the link), { file: "<Drive link to a CSV or Excel file>" }, or { run: "<run_id from an earlier answer>" }. Columns are found by their headers (id, name, address or its parts, lat/lng); name them if they aren't obvious (id_column, address_column, lat_column, lng_column; from_column and to_column for road distances). Rows with coordinates are used as they are.
trafficNoweekday (default): road times with the area's measured weekday slowdown (DfT delay on local 'A' roads by council and on motorways in Great Britain; the Urban Mobility Report's Travel Time Index by US urban area). free_flow: empty roads.weekday
journeysNo{id, from, to}; from/to are text (address, postcode) or {lat, lng}.
backgroundNoWith source: run as a background job and answer at once with job_id (automatic past 100 rows). Check with get_job; write_to_sheet with the job_id puts the results in the sheet as they finish.

Schema Changelog

Changes observed during successful MCP inspections.

  1. First observed

TDQS

A4.1/5.0
Behavior5/5

Does the description disclose side effects, auth requirements, rate limits, or destructive behavior?

Goes well beyond annotations (which only cover read-only, idempotent, non-destructive) by disclosing the routing engine, traffic model, the straight-line fallback for unroutable journeys (Northern Ireland, islands) reported in `note`, and the two-tier summary. These are exactly the behavioural traits an agent must know before trusting the numbers.

Agents need to know what a tool does to the world before calling it. Descriptions should go beyond structured annotations to explain consequences.

Conciseness4/5

Is the description appropriately sized, front-loaded, and free of redundancy?

Four tight sentences, front-loaded with capacity, scope and routing context; each sentence carries distinct information. Only mild density of scoping qualifiers keeps it from a 5.

Shorter descriptions cost fewer tokens and are easier for agents to parse. Every sentence should earn its place.

Completeness4/5

Given the tool's complexity, does the description cover enough for an agent to succeed on first attempt?

No output schema exists, so the description partially compensates by describing the summary contents and the `note` field for unroutable journeys. It is very complete for a read-only geo tool, though background-job chaining (get_job/write_to_sheet) is left entirely to the schema.

Complex tools with many parameters or behaviors need more documentation. Simple tools need less. This dimension scales expectations accordingly.

Parameters3/5

Does the description clarify parameter syntax, constraints, interactions, or defaults beyond what the schema provides?

Schema coverage is 100%, so the schema already documents all five parameters. Description adds marginal value by naming accepted endpoint forms (addresses, UK postcodes/districts like CO10, US addresses, lat/lng) and the 100-journey cap, but this is largely mirrored in the schema.

Input schemas describe structure but not intent. Descriptions should explain non-obvious parameter relationships and valid value ranges.

Purpose5/5

Does the description clearly state what the tool does and how it differs from similar tools?

States a specific verb+resource (road miles, km and drive time for journeys) with concrete scope (up to 100 per call, GB and US roads). The 'our own routing' detail distinguishes it from siblings like plan_routes and get_travel_time_area without needing to open the schema.

Agents choose between tools based on descriptions. A clear purpose with a specific verb and resource helps agents select the right tool.

Usage Guidelines3/5

Does the description explain when to use this tool, when not to, or what alternatives exist?

Capacity (up to 100 journeys) and routing model (normal traffic, no live traffic) are stated, implying when this tool fits, but no explicit when-to-use vs when-not-to-use guidance and no named alternative (plan_routes, get_travel_time_area) is given.

Agents often have multiple tools that could apply. Explicit usage guidance like "use X instead of Y when Z" prevents misuse.

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