As a GPS mod it may be very new, as an idea it is at least decades old. In the two years I spent in the greater Washington, DC area working for USDA in Hyattsville, MD, I would once or twice a week commute to the USDA headquarters building downtown on the mall, across from the Smithsonian.
The USDA shuttle bus we rode down and back did not take the most direct route, which would have gone through lots of ghetto. Instead it went out of the way to go via parts of northeastern DC that were then relatively "safe."
Safe areas included Catholic University and associated seminaries, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, a cemetery and a couple of black middle class neighborhoods. Only the last mile or so was through what you'd call a poor section. We scooted through that as quickly as we could and arrived in downtown alongside Union Station.
At the time I had memorized the route so I too could drive down to the Federal area safely in my own car. I couldn't find the route today, decades later.
