Glossary
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A
- activity
- A collection of actions (mostly tasks
) that a driver
does
as part of an assignment
, such as picking up and delivering
a package. See also Task types
in the Scheduled tasks
documentation.
- assignment
- A work item that a driver
accepts and completes as part of a
transaction between a business and its customers. An assignment can include
multiple activities
, such as delivering all packages in the
truck.
- ADC
- Application Default credentials. A method used by Google Cloud client
libraries to automatically authenticate with Google Cloud services and APIs.
It simplifies the process by allowing your application to use the same
credentials in both development and production environments without code
changes. See How Application Default Credentials works
for
details.
- actual
- Modifier indicating that something has happened, as opposed to being planned
. Applied to different types of data, such as a route
, stop
, location, or arrival time.
- authentication (: id="authentication")
- Verifies the identity of the entity making the request. For authentication,
Fleet Engine uses Application Default Credentials (ADC) for
high-trust environments and JSON Web Tokens (JWT) for low-trust environments.
- authorization (: id="authorization")
- Specifies which resources an authenticated entity has access to. For
authorization, Fleet Engine uses service accounts with Google
Cloud IAM roles, plus JWT claims that verify if entities have permissions to
see or change the data they're requesting.
B
- basemap
- Background map that provides reference information for other layers in a
Geographic Information System (GIS). A basemap typically includes
geographical features such major roads, coastlines, and political
boundaries.
C
D
- delivery
- A scheduled shipment of material goods to a scheduled stop
. Also, a
type of task
that refers to what a driver
is doing with a package.
- delivery task
- Type of scheduled task
recorded by Fleet Engine used for
dropping off items or completing a task for a consumer. See also Task
types
in the Scheduled tasks
documentation.
- destination
- The intended location for a driver activity
. This could be
a scheduled stop
for a delivery task
or
a waypoint
for
an on-demand trip
.
- driver
- Person associated with a vehicle by means of an app on their device that they
use while in the vehicle and during their assignments
.
- driver activity
- See activity
.
- drop-off
- A stop
where people or material goods are deposited after having
been picked up by a driver
.
E
F
- Fleet Engine
- Fleet Engine is a backend service that interoperates with APIs and
SDKs to enhance mapping, routing, and location management. See What is the Fleet Engine service?
- fleet plan
- A matrix composed of an ordered list of stops
for a collection
of vehicles.
- Fleet Engine service
- See Fleet Engine
.
G
- goods
- Items, such as a package or food, moved as part of an assignment
.
- gRPC
- A cross-platform, open source, remote procedure call framework
initially created by Google. See gRPC
.
H
I
- itinerary
- The collection of current assignments
for a vehicle.
For scheduled services, the itineray includes the manifest
and the sequence of deliveries
.
For on-demand trips
, the itinerary includes the number of trips
assigned at any given period, most commonly one trip.
For Cloud Fleet Routing
, the itinerary is known as a tour
.
J
- journey
- The route
for a vehicle from the origin
to the termination of
a specific assignment
. An example would be one rideshare
trip for a single person, or a shipment journey for a package delivered at
a given stop
. A journey is also the part of the driver's
assignment that you want to share, such as for determining the status of
a goods
delivery.
- journey sharing
- The ability to share the progress of on-demand trips
with consumers, or scheduled tasks
with fleet administrators.
Includes journey
sharing from the Consumer SDK, the trip
and order progress in the Maps JavaScript API,
shipment tracking, and fleet tracking.
- JWT
- JSON Web Token. A compact, URL-safe means of representing claims to be
transferred between two parties. It's essentially a self-contained way to
securely transmit information between systems, commonly used for
authentication and authorization in web applications. JWTs are often used
in OAuth 2.0 and OpenID.
K
L
- leg
- See route segment
.
- location provider
- An interface used exclusively in the JavaScript library for both shipment
tracking and fleet tracking that
provides location information for tracked objects.
This service allows consumers and fleet operators to see the
progress of tasks
on a map.
M
- manifest
- List of all items to be delivered by a single vehicle, regardless of the
sequencing of delivery
.
N
O
- on-demand trip
- A journey
requested by a consumer for a driver
to
pick up and drop-off a person or food.
See What is an on-demand trip?
- optimized route
- The most efficient path between stops
, optimized according to
criteria such as distance or time.
- origin
- The first waypoint
of a journey
.
P
- passenger
- A person who is the rider in a vehicle assigned a rideshare
activity
.
- pickup task
- Type of task
recorded by Fleet Engine to indicate picking
up of goods. Must have a corresponding delivery task
.
See also Task types
in the Scheduled tasks
documentation.
- planned
- Modifier indicating that something is intended to happen, as opposed to actually
having happened. Applied to different types of data,
such as a route
, stop
, location, or arrival time.
- polyline
- A list of points where line segments are drawn between
consecutive points. In maps, refers to a line that
connects multiple points to create, for example,
a route
.
- provider ID
- The ID, equivalent to a Google Cloud Project ID,
used in Fleet Engine endpoint requests that identifies the
request as coming from you, the customer of Google.
Q
R
- rideshare activity
- An activity
where one or more consumers are picked up or dropped
off at requested locations.
- route
- A series of connected route segments
that join beginning,
ending, and (optionally) intermediate waypoints
.
A route includes time and distance between route segments.
See also Routes API
.
- Route Optimization API
- The Route Optimization API assigns tasks and routes to a vehicle fleet,
optimizing against the objectives and constraints that you supply for
your transportation goals. See Route Optimization API
.
- route path
- An ordered list of stops
for a single vehicle.
See also shipment route
.
- route segment
- The specific part of a route
between two adjacent stops
,
including the polyline
, time, and distance between
those two stops. Also known as a leg
in
the Routes API
.
- Routes API
- An API that helps you find the ideal route
from origin
to destination
locations, including intermediate waypoints
.
The Routes API, for example,
calculates ETAs and distances for matrixes of origin and destination
locations. See Routes API documentation
.
- routing
- The process of finding a path between an origin
and destination
for a person or a vehicle.
S
- scheduled stop
- A non-delivery task
recorded by Fleet Engine requiring a stop
at a specific location, such as collections from drop boxes.
See Fleet Engine task types
.
- scheduled tasks
- A series of planned
tasks
for a driver
, such
as picking up a package or stopping at a location to provide an
on-site service. See also Scheduled Tasks
.
- shipment
- Goods delivered to a consumer by a scheduled services.
Also a type of assignment
that involves picking up and
delivering goods.
- shipment route
- An ordered list of stops
for a single vehicle. See also route
path
.
- side of road waypoint
- Used in the Routes API
as a waypoint
property that
indicates a preference for the side of the road a vehicle should stop on.
- stop
- A location along a route
where a vehicle stops. In
scheduled services, each stop
can have one or
more tasks
.
T
- task
- A task represents a single scheduled and logged action a driver
of
a vehicle takes within an activity
. Each task is associated
with a stop
. For example: Pick up a package (pickup task), stop for
gas or take a required break (unavailability task), deliver a package
(delivery task). For ridesharing, a task includes picking up and dropping
off passengers. A task has status and can be open and closed, and closed
tasks can have succeeded or failed. The task is the key mechanism used by
scheduled services to identify and conclude
transactions for a consumer. See Task.Types
for a list of all types of
tasks. See also scheduled tasks
.
- trip
- A type of assignment
that includes a pickup and a drop off. For
example, picking up and dropping off a passenger comprises a trip.
U
- unavailability task
- A task
that identifies a vehicle as unavailable for service, such as
when the driver takes a break or refuels the vehicle. See also Task
types
in the Scheduled tasks
documentation.
V
- vehicle routing problem (VRP)
- Problem of finding the optimal routes
for a given a set of vehicles
and locations, so that each location is visited by a vehicle. See Vehicle
Routing Problem
.
- vehicle stopover waypoint
- A type of waypoint
that specifies a planned
stop
along a route
between the origin
and destination
.
Also, a waypoint
property in the waypoint
object for the Routes API
.
See also stop
.
- via waypoint
- A type of waypoint
indicated as a milestone rather than a
stopping point. From the Routes API
.
W
- waypoint
- See stop
. Note that this term is specific to Google and not the GIS
industry.
X
Y
Z
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License
. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies
. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2025-09-04 UTC.
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