The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Open Platform for Agile Trip Heuristics (NREL OpenPATH, available at https://nrel.gov/openpath) is an innovative tool designed to help you track your various travel modes, such as driving a car, taking a bus, cycling, or walking. Not only does it allow you to monitor your journeys, but it also calculates the energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with each trip.
This app empowers communities by providing insights into their travel choices and patterns. It encourages users to experiment with more sustainable travel options and evaluate the outcomes. Such data-driven results are invaluable for shaping effective transportation policies and urban planning, contributing to the creation of more sustainable and accessible cities.
For individual users, NREL OpenPATH offers personalized feedback on the environmental impact of their travel decisions. At the community level, the app aggregates data on mode shares, trip frequencies, and carbon footprints, which is then made available through a public dashboard. This transparency helps in understanding broader trends and behaviors.
The functionality of NREL OpenPATH is supported by continuous data collection and analysis through a smartphone app, backed by a server and automated data processing system. The open-source nature of the app ensures transparent data handling and allows for customization to fit specific programs or research studies.
Upon initial installation, the app does not collect or transmit any data. Data collection begins only after you consent to participate in a study or program by clicking a link or scanning a QR code. If you're not part of a partner community but wish to track your personal carbon footprint, you can join the NREL-run open-access study. Your data, in aggregate form, may serve as a control group for experiments conducted by our partners.
At its core, NREL OpenPATH functions as an automatically sensed travel diary, using background location and accelerometer data to record your movements. You have the option to add semantic labels to your diary entries as requested by program administrators or researchers.
Be aware that continuous use of GPS in the background can significantly reduce your device's battery life. To mitigate this, the app automatically deactivates GPS when you're stationary, which helps to minimize battery consumption. With this feature, the app typically results in about 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
- Make push notifications optional since there are some programs that don't need them
Tags : Health & fitness
