Carbon Compiler

Inspiration

Every trip involves a tradeoff between money and time but most people never actually see the cleanest option. With NextStepHacks' Earth Forward Theme, I wanted to build something that makes the hidden tradeoff visible. The project lets people choose what matters, saving money, saving time or cutting emissions.

What it does

Carbon Compiler takes a starting point and a destination then compares driving, cycling,walking and bus side by side, showing cost, travel time and CO2 emissions for each. Using listers or quick presents( Eco, Balanced, Fastest), users can weight what matters most and the app recommends the best option.

How we built it

Carbon Compiler is built in Python with Streamlit for the interface. Routing and geocoding data come from the OpenRouteService API, covering driving, cycling, and walking directly — bus data is estimated from the driving route.

Challenges we ran into

As a solo, beginner-level developer working primarily in Python, integrating a live API and building an interactive UI was new territory. A few specific hurdles: debugging why the API key wasn't loading from environment variables, fixing a Streamlit/Folium interaction bug where results would disappear on rerun

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Going from little web-app experience to a fully working interactive tool with weighted recommendations and map visuals.

What's next for Carbon Compiler

Future improvements could include real-time transit data instead of estimated bus routing, live pricing where available, support for multi-leg trips (e.g. drive + train), and expanding to more travel modes like flights for longer distances.

Built With

• datavisualization
• git
• gps
• openrouteservice
• python
• streamlit