Streets & Trips interface with MS Access mdb

I have a client who has asked me to calculate mileage between two cities automatically and within a MS Access database application. Whenever a dispatcher enters an origin and destination city, they would like to have the mileage automatically calculated.

I do not know much about MS Streets & Trips and would like to know if there is a way to do this and how would it be done.

My client uses PC Miler but is willing to change if this interface is easier within Streets & Trips.

Can anyone explain how I could interface with S&T from within an MS Access form? Is it a function call? Please give an example if possible.

Many thanks,

JohnMc.

Microsoft Streets & Trips does not have API access. That functionality is available in S&T's big brother, Microsoft Mappoint, which is explicitly targeted for business use (with a correspondingly much higher price).

It sounds like you don't actually need offline access to this data, because this is only run for the dispatcher and not on each individual vehicle. For this scenario, Microsoft also offers the Bing Maps Web Services, which provide similar functionality.

There is a forum dealing with business use of Mappoint and the Bing Maps web services: MapPoint Forums

The hardest part of it all is keeping track of the names: Mappoint, Virtual Earth, Live Maps, Bing Maps ... this product has gone through a whole bunch of names. There are also two different Bing Maps APIs: the web service SDK (geocoding and routing functionality), and the Javascript-based Bing Maps control (the UI for the online map).

... and there are various add-ons for Microsoft MapPoint. The following two could be of interest to you:

• MileCharter - Mileage Calculator Software (MapPoint Add On)
• MileCharter Professional - Create Mileage Charts with Microsoft MapPoint

Thank you Taoyue and Marvin for your succinct response. I will definitely look into MS MapPoint as you have suggested.

I wonder why there is no API connection for S&T, since it is a subset of MapPoint?

Marvin, if MapPoint was designed for MS Office, why would I use MileCharter? What benefits would the Access forms programming get from the additional cost of MileCharter?

Thanks again,

JohnMc

The whole point of Streets&Trips is to provide an inexpensive trip planning and navigation program for consumers. It would make no sense to put all the stuff into it that Mappoint has. You would have to charge a whole bunch more for it. And the majority of that stuff is only relevant to business users.

It's a plug and play solution to your specific problem that saves you from doing the programming yourself??

Mappoint's API linkage with MS Office does not provide you with specific solutions. It simply provides you with some powerful tools to build your own solutions. Or acquire them from someone else who has already built them and is prepared to share them or sell them to others. Like MileCharter.

...ken...