Map Routing, a la Google Maps?

Question

I\'ve always been intrigued by Map Routing, but I\'ve never found any good introductory (or even advanced!) level tutorials on it. Does anybody have any pointers, hints, etc?

Answer 1

Another thought occurs to me regarding the cost of each traversal, but would increase the time and processing power required to compute.

Example: There are 3 ways I can take (where I live) to go from point A to B, according to the GoogleMaps. Garmin units offer each of these 3 paths in the Quickest route calculation. After traversing each of these routes many times and averaging (obviously there will be errors depending on the time of day, amount of caffeine etc.), I feel the algorithms could take into account the number of bends in the road for high level of accuracy, e.g. straight road of 1 mile will be quicker than a 1 mile road with sharp bends in it. Not a practical suggestion but certainly one I use to improve the result set of my daily commute.