Detroit Smart Commute

Begin your commute
Let your contacts know you've started
Quickly create a commute contact list
Update your contacts on your status
System autogenerates text messages w/ google maps location to your contacts
Find Project Greenlight safe locations
What your contacts receive

Inspiration

We spoke with Detroit commuters and staff working on transportation issues at the Kresge foundation. We frequently heard that an unreliable commute (especially for those taking both train and bus systems) often left commuters stranded for long periods of time in sometimes unfamiliar or unsafe locations.

What it does

A simple way to make sure that commuters never travel alone. With a single click commuters can let their identified commute contacts know their current status and where they are located. We also integrated w/ Project Greenlight to help stranded commuters find a safe place to resolve commuting issues.

How I built it

Detroit Smart Commute is a cross-platform mobile app built on the Ionic framework. Because of the approach taken in building this tool, it can easily be extended and continuously developed to better serve its audiences.

The app leverages the device's contact information, geolocation service, and SMS tools to instantly alert specified contacts when problems arise. In addition, it leverages the locations provided by Project Greenlight to guide the user to safe places via the Google Maps API.

Challenges I ran into

Delivering the location coordinates in a manner that is easily readable to people on my contact list. Providing those as automatic google maps links solved that challenge.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We're really excited about the Project Greenlight integration. We think this could be extended further as a partnership since the more people that are aware of Project Greenlight the more businesses that will participate in the program.