Multi-Hop Route Estimator
Plan a parcel route through multiple stops and see the total transit time.
- Origin
- 2Hub 1
- Destination
Estimated total transit
10–17business days
Each leg is estimated from great-circle distance and a tier-specific speed. Totals are the sum of all legs and don’t include time held at hubs for sorting or customs. Not a quote.
Real shipments rarely travel in a straight line. A parcel from a Chinese factory to a UK buyer might pass through a Hong Kong consolidator, a German import hub and a UK last-mile carrier before it reaches the door. Modelling those legs separately surfaces where time actually goes — and which single leg is worth upgrading instead of paying for express end-to-end.
Common route patterns
Most real multi-hop shipments fit one of four templates.
The classic dropshipping route. The import hub is usually the slowest leg.
Returns batch up at regional centres before back-haul to the main DC.
Container off-load → cross-dock → forward distribution.
Long leg by air, regional leg by road. Common in trans-continental moves.
What each stop does
First-mile collection
Aggregation and export documentation
Customs clearance and cross-dock
Sort to last-mile carrier
Final delivery routing
- • Great-circle distance for each leg
- • Tier-specific average daily speed
- • Per-leg handling buffer for the hand-off
- • Time held for hub sortation
- • Customs clearance delays
- • Consolidation cut-off windows
- • Scheduled departure gaps
Frequently asked
- How is each leg calculated?
- Great-circle distance between the country centroids of each adjacent pair, divided by a service-tier average daily speed, plus a small per-leg handling buffer for the hand-off.
- Does the total include time held at hubs?
- No. The result is leg-by-leg transit only. Sortation, customs clearance and consolidation cut-offs are not modelled — add a day or two per intermediate stop if you need an operational estimate.
- How many stops can I model?
- Up to eight. Most real routes run three to five — origin, one or two consolidation hubs, then destination.
- Why doesn’t adding more hops always add days?
- Because the individual legs get shorter. A direct flight and a two-hop routing through a closer hub can cover similar total distance; the cost of extra hops is the per-leg handling buffer, not raw distance.
- I need postcode-level accuracy. Can this do that?
- No — this tool works at country granularity for clarity across long international routes. For a single-leg postcode-to-postcode estimate, use the Transit Time Estimator.