Dynamic Route Planning for Urban Green Mobility: Development of a Web Application Offering Sustainable Route Options to Commuters

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Rising travel distances and worsening urban air quality underscore the need for improved route choices to reduce energy consumption and exposure. Whereas traditional route-planning systems focus mainly on distance and time, this study develops a methodology that provides users with wider choices in route selection. The paper presents a web-based tool designed to assist commuters in selecting eco-friendly routes. This tool combines a React.js frontend for intuitive user input with a Go back end that processes real-time data to rank and deliver route suggestions based on air pollution and energy consumption, in addition to distance and time. Real-time application programming interfaces from Mapbox are used for traffic conditions, and the World Air Quality Index is used for air-quality metrics, which are integrated into the GraphHopper multimodal routing engine. As a result, the tool offers five route choices: the shortest route, the fastest route, the route with the least exposure to air pollution (LEAP), the route with the least energy-consumption route (LECR), and a suggested route that considers all four parameters. Applied to Delhi, the tool demonstrates that the LEAP route can reduce exposure by up to 53%, although it may lead to a 42% increase in travel time in Central Delhi. This study is the first to showcase the LECR in India, demonstrating that selecting this route can save up to 28% of energy in South Delhi. Daily variability analysis conducted at different hours revealed that peak-hour times correlate with increased exposure and energy consumption. Although these results are initial and could be further enhanced with better data, the preliminary results are encouraging.