Light My Way

Helping women travel safely by displaying the safest, most lit route

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Inspiration

49 percent of women reported feeling unsafe walking alone after nightfall according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In light of recent sexual assault and harassment incidents in the London, Ontario and Western community, women now feel unsafe travelling alone more than ever.

Light My Way helps women navigate their travel through the safest and most well-lit path. Women should feel safe walking home from school, going out to exercise, or going to new locations, and taking routes with well-lit areas is an important precaution to ensure safe travel. It is essential to always be aware of your surroundings and take safety precautions no matter where and when you walk alone.

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What it does

Light My Way visualizes data of London, Ontario’s Street Lighting and recent nearby crimes in order to calculate the safest path for the user to take. Upon opening the app, the user can access “Maps” and search up their destination or drop a pin on a location. The app displays the safest route available and prompts the user to “Send Location” which sends the path that the user is taking to three contacts via messages. The user can then click on the google maps button in the lower corner that switches over to the google maps app to navigate the given path. In the “Alarm” tab, the user has access to emergency alert sounds that the user can use when in danger, and upon clicking the sounds play at a loud volume to alert nearby people for help needed.

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How we built it

React, Javascript, and Android studio were used to make the app. React native maps and directions were also used to allow user navigation through google cloud APIs. GeoJson files were imported of Street Lighting data from the open data website for the City of London to visualize street lights on the map. Figma was used for designing UX/UI.

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Challenges we ran into

We ran into a lot of trouble visualization such a large amount of data that we exported on the GeoJson street lights. We overcame that by learning about useful mapping functions in react that made marking the location easier.

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Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of making an app that can be of potential help to make women be safer walking alone. It is our first time using and learning React, as well as using google maps, so we are proud of our unique implementation of our app using real data from the City of London. It was also our first time doing UX/UI on Figma, and we are pleased with the results and visuals of our project.

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What we learned

We learned how to use React, how to implement google cloud APIs, and how to import GeoJson files into our data visualization. Through our research, we also became more aware of the issue that women face daily on feeling unsafe walking alone.

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What's next for Light My Way

We hope to expand the app to include more data on crimes, as well as expand to cities surrounding London. We want to continue developing additional safety features in the app, as well as a chatting feature with the close contacts of the user.

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