Known issues
Where the API's answers are known to fall short today, how much, and what to do until it is fixed. Checked 3 October 2026. When one is fixed it says so here and on the changelog.
Search often misses names in another language, exonyms and typos Open: being worked on
Place search finds a name as it is written locally well, but often misses the same place by its name in another language ("Genfersee" for the Léman), by an exonym ("Lake Lucerne"), or with a small typo.
- Right place in the first three: 90 % for names as written locally (57 queries), 38 % for names in another language (26), 23 % for exonyms (13), 54 % with a typo (13); measured 3 October 2026.
Meanwhile: Send the name as it is written locally where you can, and pass bias_bbox for the area your user is looking at.
Hike times run short outside Switzerland Open: being worked on
Hiking times come from a model calibrated on Swiss marked paths. Elsewhere they are often shorter than the times route operators publish.
- Against 221 routes with operator times in eight countries: median difference 15.4 %, and our times 11.9 % shorter on average; measured 3 October 2026.
- Switzerland 6.2 % (40 routes); Greece about 27 % shorter (40); Britain about 25 % shorter (9).
Meanwhile: Outside Switzerland, treat the times as optimistic. Where a call takes a pace (route weather, go windows, route cards), a pace_factor above 1 or your own leg times fit your users better.
Exits: a road has one map point, not one per kilometre Open: being worked on
Route exits gives, every kilometre, the walking minutes and metres to the nearest road. Each road appears once in exits[], at the point where its best way out meets it. Other kilometres that lead to the same road may meet it somewhere else, so a line drawn from them to that point is not the way a walker would go.
- Against official Swiss roads and stops on 32 stretches: a road was found wherever one lies within 500 m (124 points); 10 of 171 road walks reach the road elsewhere than its map point; measured 3 October 2026.
Meanwhile: Use minutes and walk_m for each kilometre, and draw the road’s point only as the road, not as each kilometre’s way out. Stops, villages and huts are single points and not affected. Remember a mapped way out is never a safe one: lifts and pass buses can be seasonal, and a hut is shelter.
On some sharp summits, the evening shade can still come too early Open: being worked on
With sun: true, route weather says where the line is in sun or shade. A fix on 3 October 2026 stopped most summits from shading themselves, but on some very sharp ones the API can still read the setting sun as hidden by terrain before sunset, where the horizon is open.
- After the 3 October fix: the Niesen summit agrees with 2 m lidar in all 27 checks; the Säntis in 9 of 19 (before: 0 of 16), its western horizon read at 12.5° where lidar gives about 0°; measured 3 October 2026.
- Across all checked points the sun-or-shade state now agrees with the reference for 93 % (1,422 of 1,523 points; 92 % before the fix), measured 3 October 2026.
Meanwhile: On a summit or sharp ridge, treat evening shade as uncertain and use the sunset time each sample carries (samples[].daylight).
Flat routes read a little climb that is not there Open: being worked on
On flat city and coastal courses, route analysis reads some climb from bridges and waterside edges in the terrain model.
- About 2.8 m of extra climb per km on flat courses (median of 5 courses); on hilly lines climb is within band for 56 % of 25 courses; measured 3 October 2026.
Meanwhile: On a course you know is flat, treat climb under about 3 m per km as noise.
Something wrong that is not here? Tell support@trailsplits.com. The live answer times are on the status page.