Belgian e-bike maker Cowboy has fulfilled its promise to help riders avoid pollution on their commuter tracks with a new air quality navigation feature in the company’s latest iOS and Android apps. Owners now have the option to choose the fastest or healthiest routes to their destination.
The feature is made possible by the integration of air quality data from a company called Breezometer, with an alleged data resolution of 5 meters (about 16 feet). It’s specific enough to help riders navigate through polluted routes in densely populated cities like Amsterdam, as shown in the video above.
The ability of Breezometer to measure air quality with such fine graininess involves some guesswork, as there are no physical sensors distributed at 5-meter intervals around the world. Encouragingly, the demands of Breezometer are backed up by lead scientist, dr. Gabriela Katz, who was previously with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The Breezometer model starts with measured data from more than 47,000 sensors worldwide. It then interweaves additional data such as live traffic, satellite imagery, smoke, wind and weather using personal algorithms and machine learning techniques. In particular, Breezometer says it measures air pollution emitted by “10 million traffic jams around the world” every 12 minutes in more than 30,000 cities worldwide. The company then submits its air quality measurements to a quality assurance process before reporting to ensure accuracy.
It certainly makes sense for Cowboy to adopt an air pollution model that relies heavily on car traffic. If you have ever driven past a traffic jam, your lungs and eyeballs are well aware of the hyperlocal pollution caused by a crowd of lazy combustion engines.
And it’s not like traditional air quality indices like those used by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “The government network of 3,900 monitoring devices nationwide has regularly missed major toxic emissions and daily pollution hazards,” he said. Reuters reported just two months ago.
So yes, the new feature of Cowboy’s air quality navigation is a guess, but it’s at least a trained feature that can benefit your heart and lungs in the long run.