The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Open Platform for Agile Trip Heuristics (NREL OpenPATH, available at https://nrel.gov/openpath) offers a powerful tool for tracking various travel modes such as cars, buses, bikes, and walking, while also measuring their energy consumption and carbon emissions.
This innovative app helps communities gain insights into their travel choices and patterns, enabling them to explore more sustainable options and assess the outcomes. Such data-driven results can significantly influence transportation policy and urban planning, paving the way for more sustainable and accessible cities.
NREL OpenPATH not only educates individual users about the environmental impact of their travel decisions but also provides a public dashboard with aggregated community data on mode shares, trip frequencies, and carbon footprints.
The app features continuous data collection and analysis through a smartphone application supported by a server and automated data processing. Its open-source framework ensures transparent data handling and allows customization for specific programs or studies.
Upon initial installation, the app does not collect or transmit any data. To participate in a study or program, users must click a link or scan a QR code and provide consent for data collection and storage. For individuals interested in assessing their personal carbon footprint without joining a partner community, NREL offers an open-access study where your data may contribute to control experiments run by our partners.
At its core, NREL OpenPATH functions as an automatically generated travel diary, utilizing background-sensed location and accelerometer data. Users can add semantic labels as required by program administrators or researchers.
Continued use of GPS in the background can significantly reduce battery life. To mitigate this, the app automatically deactivates GPS when the user is stationary, resulting in approximately a 5% battery drain for up to 3 hours of travel per day.
What's New in the Latest Version 1.9.1
Last updated on Oct 15, 2024
- Made push notifications optional, catering to programs that do not require them.
Tags : Health & fitness
