Driving Distances and Times Using SAS and Google Maps (Update?)

[rox26]

Mike Zdeb's paper about Driving Distances and Times Using SAS and Google Maps from 2010 has examples that no longer produce results (https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings10/050-2010.pdf). Years ago in SAS Community someone suggested getting the updated code from http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/Driving_Distances_and_Drive_Times_using_SAS_and_Google_Maps  but this page is no longer listed (as of July 2025). I assume that Google Maps altered the placement of the distance and time information that I want to extract. Does anybody have an update or alternative to use for the driving distance and time between 2 zip codes? Thank you!

[Quentin]

Troy Hughes presented a cool approach to BASUG (Boston Area SAS Users Group) a couple months ago.  It uses PROC FCMP to create a SAS function that runs a Python function that uses the Google Maps API to get the answer.  It's a bit more work to set up than Zdeb's 2010 approach.  But the benefit is you get back data, rather than free text you need to parse. 

Recording of the webinar: https://www.basug.org/videos?wix-vod-video-id=7ba7f8b4c7b948ac8108b15f0ca8675e&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-...

Slides: https://www.basug.org/_files/ugd/6fce8c_1b7a6abc29b74fe0937e154db349f05c.pdf

Paper: https://www.basug.org/_files/ugd/6fce8c_ff95f43425e04153a63c25757a3ef03b.pdf

Mike Raithel presented a neat approach that is I think more similar to Mike Zdeb's.

Recording: https://www.basug.org/videos?wix-vod-video-id=4ffd50aeee284b1ca2a7c3ef5a91790e&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-...

Paper: https://www.basug.org/_files/ugd/6fce8c_964ee9ecca2d4def95d523ccef5b9465.pdf

And of course you can always search lexjansen.com for more user group papers.