RouteWatch

RouteWatch Login
Account Details Page
Safest Route Generated in U-District
General Map View
Heatmap Over UWB Area

RouteWatch: Project Story

Inspiration

Every day, millions of people walk through city streets without knowing which areas might put them at risk. Traditional navigation apps focus only on the fastest path, ignoring a critical factor: safety. Inspired by the need for smarter, more equitable urban mobility, we created RouteWatch — a tool that empowers pedestrians to make safer decisions, while also giving cities insight into their most vulnerable routes.

What it does

RouteWatch is a cross-platform mobile app that helps users identify the safest walking routes using real-time or historical crime data.
Key features include:

A sleek, theme-aware UI that adapts to device mode
Sign-up and login with Firebase integration
Safe route visualization on a map (future)
Groundwork for crime-aware routing and potential civic data integration

How we built it

Frontend: React Native with inline styling for performance and control
Backend: Firebase for auth and scalable cloud storage
Design: Modern and minimal UI built from Figma concepts
Collaboration: Divided responsibilities into frontend, backend, and design to maximize learning and output
Theme syncing: Auto adapts UI to system's dark/light mode

Challenges we ran into

We were new to mobile app development and React Native, which made even small UI features hard at first
Pairing the backend to the frontend in real time and managing asynchronous Firebase calls were tougher than expected
We had to debug across multiple platforms and environments quickly

Accomplishments we’re proud of

Designed and deployed a clean, functional full-stack mobile app
Implemented smart UI theme detection
Created a future-ready base for public safety routing that could plug into live datasets or APIs