Transport Calculator

Getting materials from a supplier to your process is part of most product footprints. In an LCA, transport is modelled as the mass carried multiplied by the distance travelled, in tonne-km, linked to a transport dataset that holds the impact of each tonne-km.

The Transport Calculator works out the distance of each leg of the journey, writes the tonne-km into your graph and keeps a note of how every distance was found, so you or your reviewer can check it later.

The calculator itself is free. The impacts come from the transport datasets you link, which are licensed through the Library like any other dataset.

Add transport to an input#

1. In Gesserit, select an input of a Process. The Inspector Panel shows a Transport section. Click Add transport.
2. Check Mass carried (t). When the input is measured in mass, it's filled in for you. Otherwise, enter it.
3. Add a leg for each part of the journey, from where the material starts to your Process. For each leg, pick the mode (Road, Sea, Air or Rail), where it starts and where it ends.
4. The distance fills in, with a label saying how it was calculated. If you know the real distance, type it instead.
5. Check the transport dataset suggested for each leg, or pick another.
6. Click Save transport. Each leg appears on the canvas as a transport Process feeding your input, and your impacts update.

To change it later, select the input and click Edit transport. Remove transport takes the legs off the graph again.

The same transport for many inputs#

When several materials travel the same way, click Transport beside Sources. Pick the inputs (you can show only those without transport yet), set up the legs once and apply them. Each input gets its own copy with its own mass, which you can edit on its own afterwards.

Where the distances come from#

Every leg shows the method behind its distance, so it's always clear what a number is based on.

Air#

Pick airports by their IATA code, city or name. The distance is the shortest path over the globe between the two airports (the great-circle distance) plus 95 km. The extra 95 km covers take-off and landing routes, holding and detours, as the GLEC Framework recommends.

Example: 2 t flown from Frankfurt (FRA) to Chicago O'Hare (ORD) is 6,971 km + 95 km = 7,066 km, so 14,132 tonne-km.

Road#

Pick an address, a saved team location, or type coordinates such as 51.43, 6.76. The distance is the route a 40 t truck would drive on the road network, from OpenStreetMap.

Example: Duisburg to Linz is 762 km by road, against 641 km in a straight line.

When no road route can be found, for example to an island without a ferry link, or when the route service is unavailable, the leg uses an estimate instead: the straight-line distance × 1.25, clearly labelled "Estimated". 1.25 is the typical ratio of road to straight-line distance across Europe, but single routes range from about 1.15 to 1.76, so type the real distance if you have it.

Rail#

Rail uses the road route between the same two places as an approximation, labelled "Rail, as the road route". Rail and road distances are often close, but not always. If you know the rail distance, type it.

Sea#

Pick ports by name, country or UN/LOCODE. Before you type, the three ports nearest where the previous leg ends are suggested.

The distance follows real shipping lanes, taking the shortest way between the two ports. Routes go through the Suez Canal by default. Tick "Avoid the Suez Canal" or "Avoid the Panama Canal" to go the long way round.

Example: Rotterdam to Shanghai is 19,720 km through Suez, and 25,276 km around the Cape of Good Hope.

On the main trade routes, these distances come within a few percent of published port-to-port distances. Some ocean crossings come out up to about 10% longer, because ships in open ocean can take more direct tracks than the fixed lanes.

Ports far inland, more than 300 km from the shipping lanes (Manaus on the Amazon, for example), have no sea route. Type the distance for those.

Typing a distance yourself#

You can always type over a calculated distance. The leg is then marked "Manual override", and Use calculated distance brings the calculation back. A place without coordinates always needs its distance typed, and is marked "Entered manually".

Distances don't change behind your back#

A saved leg keeps its distance, even when maps or port data are updated later. Select a leg's Node to see its route, the method, the data version it was calculated from and when.

Choosing the transport dataset#

Each leg starts with a suggested ecoinvent dataset (aggregated, cut-off). You can change it at any time.

Road and rail suggestions follow the region of the material, or its Process's geography when the material is global or has no region:

• Road: Europe, Brazil and South Africa have their own datasets. Everywhere else uses the rest-of-world one.
• Rail: Switzerland, the rest of Europe, the US, China, India and South Africa have their own datasets. Everywhere else uses the rest-of-world one.

Any Library dataset measured in tonne-km can be used instead. A few things to know:

• The suggested datasets are ecoinvent datasets, so your team needs them licensed, as for any other Library dataset. See Data Licensing & Credits.
• Picking a unit process brings its upstream inputs in unlinked, so the leg's impact can be understated until you link them. An aggregated dataset avoids this.
• Refrigerated transport isn't suggested yet. For chilled or frozen goods, pick a refrigerated dataset yourself.

Saved team locations#

For supplier sites you use often, find the address or type the coordinates, then click Save as team location and give it a name. Everyone in your team can then pick it by name.

Each saved leg keeps its own copy of the place, so renaming or deleting a saved location later never changes transport you've already added.

What leaves Circa#

To find addresses and road routes, Circa uses Geoapify, a mapping service built on OpenStreetMap:

• Text you type into a place search is sent to Geoapify to find matching addresses.
• For road and rail routes, the coordinates of the two ends are sent to Geoapify.

Nothing else from your graph is sent. Airport, port and sea-route calculations run entirely inside Circa.

Data sources, tools and licences#

The calculator is built on open data and one mapping service. We credit them here and next to every distance in the app.

Shipping lane data#

We converted Eurostat's MARNET shipping lanes into a format our route finder can read. No lanes were changed: points were rewritten and duplicates removed (5 October 2026). As the EUPL asks, our converted copy is available to you under the same licence:

The original is at github.com/eurostat/searoute.