Issues with Valhalla Server: Transit Isochrone Calculation and Warnings

[alf-ken]

Hello,

I’m using a custom Valhalla server and attempting to calculate transit isochrones. I’ve encountered two issues:

1. Warnings When Checking Server Status

When querying the server status, I receive the following warnings, even though the response otherwise appears correct:

$version
[1] "3.6.1"

$tileset_last_modified
[1] "2026-02-11 10:13:32 GMT"

$available_actions
 [1] "status"             "centroid"           "expansion"          "transit_available"
 [5] "trace_attributes"   "trace_route"        "isochrone"          "optimized_route"
 [9] "sources_to_targets" "height"             "route"              "locate"

Warning messages:
1: In as.POSIXlt.POSIXct(x, tz) : unknown timezone '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M'
2: In as.POSIXlt.POSIXct(x, tz) : unknown timezone '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M'

Question: What could be causing these warnings? Is it a server configuration issue or related to how the response is processed?

2. Missing Date/Time Parameter in vl Functions

I noticed that the vl functions (e.g., vl_isochrone()) do not provide a way to specify a date or time for transit calculations. Without this, transit isochrone calculations are not meaningful, as schedules are time-dependent.

Question: Is there a way to specify a date/time for transit isochrones that I’m missing? Or should I be using a different function or parameter?

Thank you in advance

Chrijo

[mthh]

Hi and thanks for your feedback!

1.

This is related to how the response is processed. I believe we fixed an issue with unnecessary date parsing (that was returning a warning) in 92b1165 and this hasn't been released on CRAN yet, but I don't think this applies to you because your output does not show an osm_changeset field. Just to be sure, could you tell me what you get when you query the status service (not with vl_status but with CURL or by going to the URL http://your-server/status in your browser)? Specifically in the tileset_last_modified field?

2.

There is currently no way to specify the departure time for time-dependent routing. But that's a good idea to add!
I need to discuss this with @rCarto but I may add another argument to the various vl_ functions that will allow users to specify any of the other request options, so the departure time should be usable with something like vl_isochrone(pt, distances = c(10, 20, 30), costing = "multimodal", request_option = list(date_time = list(type = 1, value = "2021-05-22T08:10")).

[alf-ken]

Natürlich! Hier ist eine präzisere und professionellere Version deiner Nachricht auf Englisch:

---

Hi @mthh,

Thank you for your prompt response.

Regarding point 1, the output of curl_fetch_memory("https://xxxxxxx") is as follows:

$url
[1] "https:/xxxxxx"

$status_code
[1] 404

$type
[1] "application/json;charset=utf-8"

$headers
[Hex output omitted for brevity]

$times
     redirect    namelookup       connect   pretransfer starttransfer         total
     0.048218      0.000043      0.000544      0.040521      0.057797      0.057845

$content
[Hex output omitted for brevity]

Regarding point 2, that would be great and much appreciated.

[mthh]

Could you give me the actual result of a call to the status service on your Valhalla server rather than the response to a request to "https:/xxxxxx"? (if you use curl_fetch_memory, I am particularly interested in the content of the response, which can be found in the content field)

[alf-ken]

Sorry, but I'm not sure what you mean. This?
test$content [1] 7b 22 65 72 72 6f 72 5f 63 6f 64 65 22 3a 31 30 36 2c 22 65 72 72 6f 72 22 3a 22 54 72 79 [31] 20 61 6e 79 20 6f 66 3a 20 27 5c 2f 6c 6f 63 61 74 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 72 6f 75 74 65 27 20 [61] 27 5c 2f 68 65 69 67 68 74 27 20 27 5c 2f 73 6f 75 72 63 65 73 5f 74 6f 5f 74 61 72 67 65 [91] 74 73 27 20 27 5c 2f 6f 70 74 69 6d 69 7a 65 64 5f 72 6f 75 74 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 69 73 6f [121] 63 68 72 6f 6e 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 74 72 61 63 65 5f 72 6f 75 74 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 74 72 61 [151] 63 65 5f 61 74 74 72 69 62 75 74 65 73 27 20 27 5c 2f 74 72 61 6e 73 69 74 5f 61 76 61 69 [181] 6c 61 62 6c 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 65 78 70 61 6e 73 69 6f 6e 27 20 27 5c 2f 63 65 6e 74 72 6f [211] 69 64 27 20 27 5c 2f 73 74 61 74 75 73 27 20 22 2c 22 73 74 61 74 75 73 5f 63 6f 64 65 22 [241] 3a 34 30 34 2c 22 73 74 61 74 75 73 22 3a 22 4e 6f 74 20 46 6f 75 6e 64 22 7d

[mthh]

I was thinking more of a text format response, but hexadecimal works too!

However, I asked you for the result of the query at the URL http://your-valhalla-server/status and not just at the URL http://your-valhalla-server/ (by decoding the hexadecimal response, we can see that this is what you did).

> x <- "7b 22 65 72 72 6f 72 5f 63 6f 64 65 22 3a 31 30 36 2c 22 65 72 72 6f 72 22 3a 22 54 72 79 20 61 6e 79 20 6f 66 3a 20 27 5c 2f 6c 6f 63 61 74 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 72 6f 75 74 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 68 65 69 67 68 74 27 20 27 5c 2f 73 6f 75 72 63 65 73 5f 74 6f 5f 74 61 72 67 65 74 73 27 20 27 5c 2f 6f 70 74 69 6d 69 7a 65 64 5f 72 6f 75 74 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 69 73 6f 63 68 72 6f 6e 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 74 72 61 63 65 5f 72 6f 75 74 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 74 72 61 63 65 5f 61 74 74 72 69 62 75 74 65 73 27 20 27 5c 2f 74 72 61 6e 73 69 74 5f 61 76 61 69 6c 61 62 6c 65 27 20 27 5c 2f 65 78 70 61 6e 73 69 6f 6e 27 20 27 5c 2f 63 65 6e 74 72 6f 69 64 27 20 27 5c 2f 73 74 61 74 75 73 27 20 22 2c 22 73 74 61 74 75 73 5f 63 6f 64 65 22 3a 34 30 34 2c 22 73 74 61 74 75 73 22 3a 22 4e 6f 74 20 46 6f 75 6e 64 22 7d"
> raw_vec <- as.raw(strtoi(strsplit(x, " ")[[1]], 16L))
> rawToChar(raw_vec)
[1] "{\"error_code\":106,\"error\":\"Try any of: '\\/locate' '\\/route' '\\/height' '\\/sources_to_targets' '\\/optimized_route' '\\/isochrone' '\\/trace_route' '\\/trace_attributes' '\\/transit_available' '\\/expansion' '\\/centroid' '\\/status' \",\"status_code\":404,\"status\":\"Not Found\"}"

[alf-ken]

Sorry, I'm very unexperienced working with APIs

{"version":"3.6.1","tileset_last_modified":1770804812,"available_actions":["status","centroid","expansion","transit_available","trace_attributes","trace_route","isochrone","optimized_route","sources_to_targets","height","route","locate"]}

This one?

[mthh]

Sorry, I'm very unexperienced working with APIs

No worries!

This one?

Exactly, thank you for your help! I wanted to be sure about what exactly you had in the tileset_last_modified field because it is the transformation of this field that returns the warning In as.POSIXlt.POSIXct(x, tz): unknown timezone.

Regarding point 2. I will keep you informed shortly, probably sometime next week.

[alf-ken]

Thank you :)