FAQ
Answers about what TripSpanner currently does, what it does not do yet, and how we are validating demand.
Yes. TripSpanner uses verified transport data sourced from IRCTC's published station database (7,364 stations) and the Airports Authority of India's operational registry (164 airports as of 2025). The platform covers 98.4% of IRCTC-listed station pairs across India. It was built by two BITS Pilani students to solve a real problem they experienced firsthand — planning multi-leg journeys from smaller cities where no direct connections exist.
Yes. Route data is sourced from IRCTC's published station database (7,364 stations) and the Airports Authority of India's operational registry (164 airports as of 2025). TripSpanner covers 98.4% of IRCTC-listed station pairs and 483,000+ optimised routes. Data is updated regularly from these government sources.
TripSpanner is a multimodal travel planning platform built for Indian travelers who need to combine multiple transport modes into a single journey. India has 7,364 railway stations and 164 operational airports, but no major travel app connects them into one route. TripSpanner solves this: enter an origin and destination, and the platform compares combinations across flights, trains, buses, and cabs for 5,000+ Indian cities — especially useful for travel to and from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities where direct connections are limited.
Enter your origin and destination. TripSpanner's AI scans 483,000+ route combinations, identifies the nearest airports and railway junctions, and presents complete end-to-end itineraries ranked by duration, cost, and convenience. For cities with no direct connections, it automatically discovers hub-and-spoke routes — for example, local bus to nearest junction, train to nearest airport, then flight to destination.
TripSpanner is a route planning tool, not a booking platform. For each leg of your journey, it surfaces direct links to IRCTC for trains, airline websites or OTAs for flights, and RedBus for buses. This lets you book each leg on the authoritative platform while TripSpanner handles the complex planning step that existing booking platforms cannot do — combining all modes into a single optimal itinerary.
No. TripSpanner is a route intelligence platform, not an Online Travel Agency. It does not process payments or hold inventory. Instead, it generates the optimal multi-modal plan and routes you to the relevant booking platform (IRCTC, airline site, RedBus) for each leg. This focus on planning rather than booking is what enables coverage across 5,000+ towns that OTAs do not serve.
This is exactly what TripSpanner is built for. When no direct connection exists, TripSpanner finds hub-and-spoke routes — identifying the nearest major railway junction or airport at each end of your journey, then combining legs across trains, buses, flights, and cabs into a single connected itinerary. Over 63% of India's outbound travelers now start from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities where direct options are limited or unavailable.
Routes are ranked using three primary factors: total door-to-door duration, total cost across all legs, and number of transfers. TripSpanner also applies practical Indian travel rules — for example, a minimum 3-hour buffer between a train arrival and a domestic flight departure, and a 5-hour buffer for international connections. You can filter and sort results based on your own priorities.
TripSpanner is live now for multimodal route planning across 5,000+ Indian destinations. Route data is updated regularly from IRCTC and DGCA sources. Booking integrations — allowing you to book all legs in a single transaction — are currently in development.
You can share feedback through the survey form linked on our Early User Validation page. Your input directly shapes which features we build next. We read every response — the current product reflects feedback from 30+ early users who helped us validate the core planning workflow.