EcoRoute

Inspiration

Transportation accounts for a significant portion of global carbon emissions, and still, most navigation tools optimize only for speed or distance. We were inspired by this hackathon to think about our environment. We realized that if commuters can see their carbon impact before choosing a method of transportation and route, they might take more environmentally responsible decisions, which is why we developed EcoRoute, which aims to shift commuter mindset from fastest route to smartest route.

What it does

EcoRoute is a carbon aware web application that lets users enter a starting point and destination using Google Maps Autocomplete, retrieves multiple driving route alternatives, estimates CO2 emissions using a formula based on a traffic aware system, compares transporation modes, and displays estimated CO2 emissions, cost, and a green score based on carbon emissions and Co2 savings.

How we built it

We built EcoRoute as a lightweight front-end web app using HTML for structure, CSS for modern eco-themed UI design, Vanilla JavaScript as our coding language, Google Maps API for Autocomplete and Route alternatives, and CloudFlare backend systems to encrypt our API key. We also implemented a simplified carbon model using average emission factors (grams per km), and we introduced a small traffic proxy factor based on trip duration, to allow determination of carbon optimal driving route, not just the fastest route.

Challenges we ran into

Balancing accuracy vs simplicity, synchronizing map highlighting of routes, route cards, emission model, we also ran into challenges when styling our google maps autocomplete to match our UI theme. We also took a while to have our API key encrypted through cloudflare's systems, instead of directly running it in our code, which would expose the API key.