INDEPENDENT RESEARCH / JOURNEY PLANNING
Exploring a journey from the starting postcode to the destination, with ground travel and flight connections considered together.
THE RESEARCH QUESTION
The shortest flight is only one part of a journey. Travel to a departure airport, connections between flights and travel from the arrival airport all affect the overall route.
Fastest Path Including Flights is an independent research project developed for a friend. It explores combining those stages in one route-planning workflow.
THE TECHNICAL APPROACH
The supplied flow document describes an ASP.NET and C# application that works with airport coordinates, location lookups, ground-route information and a flight API.
The interface asks for a starting location, destination and flight date. Behind that form, the documented workflow identifies candidate airports, retrieves route and flight information, and compares candidate journeys.
DOCUMENTED WORKFLOW
Use the start and destination postcodes to request geographic coordinates.
Compare coordinates against an airport CSV dataset and present nearby options for selection.
Request routes from the starting location to departure airports, and from arrival airports to the destination.
Retrieve flights for selected airport pairs and consider flight legs and connection waiting times.
Show route options based on the chosen airports and the available information.
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
The flow document identifies indirect flights and waiting time between connections as calculation challenges. Different airport time zones also need to be accounted for when comparing journey durations.
It also considers whether travelling farther on the ground to catch a direct flight could be quicker than using a nearer airport with a connecting flight. Expanding the candidate airports creates more combinations to evaluate.
RESEARCH BOUNDARIES
The documented approach limits the nearby-airport shortlist to five to control API usage and calculation scope. It also uses large airports from the source dataset as its initial example.
Ground-route coverage, available flight data and the chosen airport shortlist constrain the comparison. The project explores candidate journeys within those limits; it does not establish that every possible route has been searched.
This case study describes the supplied interface and research workflow. It does not claim independently verified travel-time improvements, production availability or a flight-booking capability.
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