Door-to-door chain
Give two places and the modes you accept. The API picks the ports, rail terminals and airports, routes each leg on its own network, adds handling at every transfer and returns the best chain plus the other feasible ones. The example is a Dongguan factory to Warsaw with sea, rail and road allowed; section geometry is left out and one alternative is shown.
Query parameters
Any form from the Locations table, usually a factory or warehouse address.
Same forms as from.
Comma-separated SEA,ROAD,RAIL,AIR,RIVER. Default all five. A chain uses only these.
cost (default), time or distance. Sets the order of route and alternatives.
Fix the port of loading by UN/LOCODE. Otherwise the API chooses.
Fix the port of discharge, e.g. PLGDN.
Sea leg speed, 3 to 40. Default 14.
Sea leg routing, short or safe.
Passages to close on the sea leg.
Other feasible chains in alternatives[]. Default true for ROAD, RAIL, AIR and /multimodal.
Add terminal handling at each transfer: port 24 h, rail terminal 12 h, airport 12 h, river port 18 h. Default true.
Geometry per section as [lat, lng] pairs. Road sections also give ferry_paths as lines.
Departure date YYYY-MM-DD for the seasonal river rules. Default today (UTC). Only river legs depend on it.
false switches the seasonal river rules off: no closures, no slow-downs, no seasonal_notes. Default true.
Response schema
19 fields
Nested exactly as the JSON is. Open a branch to read its fields; hover a name for the full dot-path.
data
from / data
The resolved points: kind (port, airport, country, address, coordinates), name, locode or iata, country_code, lat, lng.
The modes you allowed.
route
Chain type: Sea, Rail, Air, Road, River (road, barge, road) or Sea + River (sea to a river-mouth gateway, then barge).
The modes the chain actually uses, in order.
summary
Total km and nm for the chain.
Total hours and days. duration.hours = moving_hours + handling_hours.
Relative cost in thousands of km-equivalents at SEA 1, RIVER 1.8, RAIL 3, ROAD 6, AIR 40 per km. For ranking, not a price.
sections[]
Legs in order: transport_mode, from, to, distance, duration, path. SEA legs add speed_knots, via, eca and passages. ROAD legs add driving_hours and ferry_paths. RIVER legs add the fields below.
RIVER: average speed over ground for this leg, current and locks included.
RIVER: km sailed with the current (downstream_km), against it (upstream_km) and on still water such as canals, lakes and tidal reaches (slack_water_km).
RIVER: lock sites passed. lock_hours is the time they add, already inside duration.
RIVER: named waterways on the leg, longest first, as name, km and class (CEMT class in Europe).
RIVER: seasonal rules that touch this leg on the requested date, with the km affected.
RIVER: credit line for the waterway data this leg was built from. Show it wherever you display the leg.
Each change of mode: at (port, rail terminal or airport), from_mode, to_mode, hours.
true when a road leg was estimated from straight-line distance because road routing was briefly unavailable.
Other feasible chains, same shape, in the order set by optimize.
Present when RIVER is allowed: the date the seasonal rules were applied for.
Seasonal river rules that changed the answer: id, kind (closure, ice_risk, low_water), note, typical_window, source, then time_factor for a slow-down or reopens_about for a closure, and effect: no_route (the river chain is gone), detour (it goes round the closed stretch) or slower.
Errors
A failure answers with an HTTP error status and { "error": { "code", "message" } }. Branch on the code, and log the message.
A parameter is missing or malformed: an unknown mode, speed_knots outside 3 to 40, an unknown passage in avoid, a pol/pod that is not a sea port, or a date that is not YYYY-MM-DD.
The location is well formed but we cannot place it: an unknown code, or an address the geocoder does not find.
No route joins the two points with the modes and passages you allowed, for example SEA only between two inland cities. When a seasonal river closure is the cause, the message names each closure, its typical window and the date it usually reopens.
Free-text address lookup is briefly down. Codes and coordinates keep working.
Sea chain
The five closest main container ports on each side are paired, the pairs ranked by sea distance plus the inland legs, and the best three routed in full. Inland legs go by rail when rail is allowed and the port is more than 250 km away, otherwise by road.
River and Sea + River chains
River: road to a river port, barge, road from a river port. Sea + River: sea to a gateway at a river mouth, then barge inland (or the reverse). Sea + River is dropped when it is more than 1.3 times the River km or not at least 3 % shorter than River, more than 2.5 times the great circle while a direct chain exists, more than 1.6 times the shortest chain without air, or more than half road and rail access. Seasonal closures on the requested date remove river stretches, see Inland waterways.
Rail, air and road chains
Rail: road to the nearest railhead within 150 km, rail, road from the railhead. Air: road to one of the two closest large cargo airports within 600 km, flight, road to the door. Road: direct truck route, ferries included.
What the times include
Moving time per leg and handling at each transfer. Timetables, border queues, customs and cut-offs are not modelled: these are planning estimates.
curl 'https://api.navo24.com/v1/distance/multimodal?from=Dongguan%2C%20China&to=Warsaw%2C%20Poland&modes=SEA%2CRAIL%2CROAD&date=2026-10-17' \
-H "Authorization: Bearer tmcp_YOUR_API_KEY"const res = await fetch("https://api.navo24.com/v1/distance/multimodal?from=Dongguan%2C%20China&to=Warsaw%2C%20Poland&modes=SEA%2CRAIL%2CROAD&date=2026-10-17", {
headers: {
"Authorization": "Bearer tmcp_YOUR_API_KEY"
}
});
const data = await res.json();import requests
res = requests.get(
"https://api.navo24.com/v1/distance/multimodal?from=Dongguan%2C%20China&to=Warsaw%2C%20Poland&modes=SEA%2CRAIL%2CROAD&date=2026-10-17",
headers={"Authorization": "Bearer tmcp_YOUR_API_KEY"},
)
data = res.json(){
"data": {
"from": {
"kind": "address",
"name": "Dongguan",
"country_code": "CN",
"lat": 23.01836,
"lng": 113.74523
},
"to": {
"kind": "address",
"name": "Warsaw",
"country_code": "PL",
"lat": 52.23337,
"lng": 21.07115
},
"transport_modes": [
"SEA",
"RAIL",
"ROAD"
],
"optimize": "cost",
"route": {
"label": "Sea",
"transport_modes": [
"ROAD",
"SEA",
"RAIL"
],
"summary": {
"distance": {
"km": 20206.8,
"nm": 10910.8,
"meters": 20206800
},
"duration": {
"hours": 825.2,
"days": 34.38,
"seconds": 2970720
},
"moving_hours": 777.2,
"handling_hours": 48.0,
"speed_kmh": 24.49,
"cost_index": 20.99
},
"sections": [
{
"transport_mode": "ROAD",
"from": {
"kind": "address",
"name": "Dongguan",
"country_code": "CN",
"lat": 23.01836,
"lng": 113.74523
},
"to": {
"kind": "port",
"name": "Dongguan",
"locode": "CNDGG",
"country_code": "CN",
"lat": 23.04797,
"lng": 113.74146
},
"distance": {
"km": 6.0,
"nm": 3.2,
"meters": 5951
},
"duration": {
"hours": 0.1,
"days": 0.01,
"seconds": 533
},
"driving_hours": 0.1
},
{
"transport_mode": "SEA",
"from": {
"kind": "port",
"name": "Dongguan",
"locode": "CNDGG",
"country_code": "CN",
"lat": 23.04797,
"lng": 113.74146
},
"to": {
"kind": "port",
"name": "Kaliningrad",
"locode": "RUKGD",
"country_code": "RU",
"lat": 54.65159,
"lng": 20.33569
},
"distance": {
"km": 19825.6,
"nm": 10705.0,
"meters": 19825600
},
"duration": {
"hours": 764.6,
"days": 31.86,
"seconds": 2752560
},
"speed_knots": 14.0,
"via": "via Suez Canal",
"eca": {
"nm": 3193.8,
"non_eca_nm": 7511.2,
"share": 0.2983,
"zones": [
{
"id": "north-sea",
"name": "North Sea ECA",
"nm": 814.5
},
{
"id": "baltic",
"name": "Baltic Sea ECA",
"nm": 444.5
},
{
"id": "mediterranean",
"name": "Mediterranean Sea ECA",
"nm": 1934.8
}
]
},
"passages": [
{
"id": "suez",
"name": "Suez Canal"
},
{
"id": "malacca",
"name": "Strait of Malacca"
},
{
"id": "babalmandab",
"name": "Bab-el-Mandeb"
},
{
"id": "gibraltar",
"name": "Strait of Gibraltar"
}
]
},
{
"transport_mode": "RAIL",
"from": {
"kind": "rail_terminal",
"lat": 54.64694,
"lng": 20.33833
},
"to": {
"kind": "rail_terminal",
"lat": 52.24545,
"lng": 21.05261
},
"distance": {
"km": 375.2,
"nm": 202.6,
"meters": 375220
},
"duration": {
"hours": 12.5,
"days": 0.52,
"seconds": 45026
}
}
],
"transfers": [
{
"at": {
"kind": "port",
"name": "Dongguan",
"locode": "CNDGG",
"country_code": "CN",
"lat": 23.04797,
"lng": 113.74146
},
"from_mode": "ROAD",
"to_mode": "SEA",
"hours": 24.0
},
{
"at": {
"kind": "port",
"name": "Kaliningrad",
"locode": "RUKGD",
"country_code": "RU",
"lat": 54.65159,
"lng": 20.33569
},
"from_mode": "SEA",
"to_mode": "RAIL",
"hours": 24.0
}
],
"estimated": false
},
"alternatives": [
{
"label": "Rail",
"transport_modes": [
"ROAD",
"RAIL"
],
"summary": {
"distance": {
"km": 10386.6,
"nm": 5608.3,
"meters": 10386600
},
"duration": {
"hours": 358.0,
"days": 14.92,
"seconds": 1288800
},
"moving_hours": 346.0,
"handling_hours": 12.0,
"speed_kmh": 29.01,
"cost_index": 31.21
},
"sections": [
{
"transport_mode": "ROAD",
"from": {
"kind": "address",
"name": "Dongguan",
"country_code": "CN",
"lat": 23.01836,
"lng": 113.74523
},
"to": {
"kind": "rail_terminal",
"lat": 23.0975,
"lng": 113.84695
},
"distance": {
"km": 17.6,
"nm": 9.5,
"meters": 17590
},
"duration": {
"hours": 0.4,
"days": 0.01,
"seconds": 1275
},
"driving_hours": 0.4
},
{
"transport_mode": "RAIL",
"from": {
"kind": "rail_terminal",
"lat": 23.0975,
"lng": 113.84695
},
"to": {
"kind": "rail_terminal",
"lat": 52.24545,
"lng": 21.05261
},
"distance": {
"km": 10369.0,
"nm": 5598.8,
"meters": 10368985
},
"duration": {
"hours": 345.6,
"days": 14.4,
"seconds": 1244278
}
}
],
"transfers": [
{
"at": {
"kind": "rail_terminal",
"lat": 23.0975,
"lng": 113.84695
},
"from_mode": "ROAD",
"to_mode": "RAIL",
"hours": 12.0
}
],
"estimated": false
}
]
},
"meta": {
"took_ms": 897
}
}