Belgian e-bike maker Cowboy has fulfilled its promise to help passengers avoid pollution on their routes 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 enabled by the integration of air quality data from a company called Breezometer, with a claimed data resolution of 5 meters (about 16 feet). This is specific enough to help passengers navigate polluted routes in densely built cities like Amsterdam, as shown in the video above.
The breezometer’s ability to measure air quality with such granularity involves some assumptions, since it does not have physical sensors distributed at 5-meter intervals around the globe. In an encouraging way, Breezometer’s statements are supported by the chief scientist, Dr. Gabriela Katz, who previously worked in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The Breezometer model starts with measured data from more than 47,000 sensors worldwide. It then inserts additional data, such as live traffic, satellite imagery, smoke, wind and weather using custom algorithms and machine learning techniques. Notably, Breezometer says that it measures air pollution emitted by “10 million bottling sections worldwide” every 12 minutes for 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 incorporate an air pollution model that relies heavily on car traffic. After all, if you’ve ever cycled through a traffic jam, your lungs and eyes are perfectly aware of the hyperlocal pollution created by a lot of idling combustion engines.
And it is not as if traditional air quality indexes, such as those used by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), were not a problem. “The government network of 3,900 monitoring devices across the country has routinely lost major toxic releases and day-to-day pollution hazards,” said one Reuters report just two months ago.
So yes, Cowboy’s new air quality navigation feature is a hunch, but at least it’s an educated feature that can benefit your heart and lungs in the long run.