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Frequently Asked Questions

General

What is routeRANK?

routeRANK is a multi-modal door-to-door travel planner that allows you to find the best route to and from your destination. Our patented system intelligently combines hundreds of flight, train, shuttle and car routes and ranks them all according to your preferences such as price, duration, available time for working or CO2 emission. This gives you an overview of all the possible routes with a single search.

Why use routeRANK?

Independent travel planning is tedious, time-consuming and often leads to suboptimal results. For every search there are a huge number of different routes and modes of transports to consider. Finding and combining the best results is difficult and time-consuming. routeRANK makes this process a lot more easier and convenient by offering a multi-modal door-to-door search that makes finding the best possible route easy.

How does it work?

Our patented technology finds and ranks the best possible routes by integrating all relevant modes of transport such as air, rail, public transport, P+Rail, P+Ride, car, rental car, car sharing, car pooling, e-bike, bike, walk and their many multi-modal combinations.

Do you offer custom versions for business applications?

Yes, we can tailor our software to suit the needs of corporate customers and organizations, for their internal use or use on their own website, with applications in both travel and logistics. For more information, see the Business Solutions

What are the supported browsers?

The list of supported browsers changes from time to time. Currently, the following browsers are supported:

  • Firefox (latest)
  • Chrome (latest)
  • Microsoft Edge (latest)
  • Safari (latest)
  • IE 11

Settings

What are the "residency" settings?

You may choose your country of residence, and we will show you localized content where available.

What are the "language" settings?

You may choose the language in which you would like the routeRANK website to be presented. We then make every effort to show you locations, results and external links in the language selected, as far as data is available.

Locations

Why are the locations/countries not always displayed in my language?

We display the names of towns and cities in your the language where possible. The names of train stations are usually displayed in the language of the country they are in, and most airport names are displayed in English.

Results

How do I sort my routes?

Results can be sorted according to the following criteria: price, duration and CO2 emissions.

You can sort your routes by clicking on the header of the column you would like to sort your routes by. Clicking a second time on the same column header will reverse the sorting order of the routes.

How do I use the Options and Filtering?

The options and filtering allow you to refine and personalize your search results. They appear on the side after the search finishes ( button on mobile/tablet)

Time Filters: This option appears after the search finishes next to the search box. It allows you to filter results based on the departure and arrival times. You can use this option to show only those trips that fit your timing preferences

Result Filters: This option is only available on customized versions, the travel solution versions of routeRANK. It displays a panel with options to show only the results meeting certain criteria in terms of the maximal number of layovers, highest acceptable price or amount of CO2 emissions, or longest trip duration.

Airport Selection: This link is only displayed when results include flights. It displays all the different departure and arrival airports searched for your journey. You can then select your preferred airports and deselect airports you would not like to travel through.

Transfer Selection: This link is only displayed when results include flights. It displays a panel showing options for transfers between airports, which include public transport or car. Note that the car option also applies to taxis.

Customize Car: This panel lets you customize your car preferences for the direct car route or the departure and arrival transfers to and from the airport.

Customize Train: This panel allows you to set the travel classes and price reduction options for your train trips (both for direct train routes and transfers from different train providers). Note that for the moment the travel classes and price reduction options are applied for all people in the travel group.

Ranking Preferences: This panel lets you set the importance weights of different criteria to rank your routes. Presently the following options are included: the cost of the whole trip, travel time, the percentage of time you can work during the trip (productivity), and the CO2 emissions.

Why are some prices italicized and others not?

Prices in italics indicate that the displayed price is an estimate. Prices are typically estimated for train journeys which span more than one country, and for destinations outside the countries of our current travel providers. Obtaining accurate prices for these journeys is difficult because even the railways only rarely provide prices online for destinations outside their own country.

Why am I forwarded to a web site that is not in my language?

We try to forward you to websites in the same language as in your settings, where possible. Some providers website are only available in English. We hope to incorporate versions in other languages in the future.

Why am I forwarded to a web site that does not display trip details?

We try to forward you directly to a web site that provides the information regarding the trip, but sometimes this is not possible; one reason is that some travel providers do not give a means to link directly to the relevant results page.

Why do you sometimes show two train journeys with the same departure and arrival time?

There are some cases when the train results appear to be same in terms of departure/arrival times but they are actually different because they use different trains for intermediate parts of the journey; these details can be seen by following the link the the travel provider site.

Why do you not display all the flights that I find on other flight search engines?

In order to not overwhelm you with too many results, we filter the flights information that we get from our providers and only display the best ones for you (taking into account factors like price, duration and departure and arrival times).

What does Offset CO2 mean?

We offer the option to let you offset or neutralize the CO2 emissions of your journey by forwarding you to the myClimate offsetting project. By offsetting you invest in projects that reduce the equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emitted into the atmosphere. For more details about the offset projects, please refer to the myClimate website.

What is available time?

Depending on transportation mode, we estimate how much idle time you could have during the entire journey which could be used for working. For example on the plane or on the train, or waiting to board. This estimation excludes busy times such as transfer times, boarding, check in, landing and take off, etc.

Route and price computations

How is the car travel time computed?

The duration of the car journey is calculated using OpenStreetMap.

How are the car prices computed?

The car cost depends on the car (small, medium, large or custom), the type of fuel (petrol, diesel), and the cost of fuel. An estimated car cost is added to the fuel cost to account for car maintenance and depreciation.

How are the train prices computed?

We typically show you the standard, 2nd class tariff, or the default tariff displayed by the travel provider. To see alternative options (for 1st class, or with a reduction) you can customize your train settings.

How are the CO2 emissions calculated?

CO2 emission calculations are based on a model developed by the IFEU Heidelberg. They are further refined using information from the European Commission, non-profit organizations, transport providers and universities across Europe, and the Ecoinvent Centre.

The calculations account for emissions generated by transport vehicles (e.g. gasoline and diesel from the vehicle\'s tank), emissions generated by the extraction and conversion of energy (e.g. crude oil, coal, uranium from power plants or refineries), emissions generated by energy distribution (e.g. tank trucks, power grid, oil tankers) and emissions generated by construction, maintenance and disposal of transport vehicles (e.g. cars, planes, trains) and infrastructure (e.g. roads, airports, railway lines).

Car emissions are based on those of a mid-sized, gasoline-powered passenger car (EURO 4) with one passenger. Plane emissions account for differences in capacity utilization where data is available. Similarly, train emissions account for differences in capacity utilization and consider national differences in electricity mix.

Users can customize their car by choosing the fuel type (petrol or diesel) and car type (small, medium, large, or custom car).