Green GPS Guides Your Car Along The Greenest Route

Research scholars at the University of Illinois have created a simple but effective software interface called “Green GPS” that runs on the mobile devices like smartphones and laptops. The thing that makes this technology different from other GPS apps and software is its algorithm that tells not only about the shortest and quickest routes but also indicates the most fuel efficient route for your vehicle. The Green GPS is compatible with many cell phones. It simply connects to your car’s computer (GPS) via a cheap and common off-the-shelf wireless adapter that is present in a lot of cars manufactured after 1996. The technology is touted as a great way to reduce the carbon footprints. Many environmental organizations and NGOs have appreciated this novel method to control the pollution in areas with lot of “stop and go” traffic. Your car’s onboard diagnostics system uploads crucial data about engine parameters and gasoline efficiency to the phone, which uses this piece of information to find the greenest route. This sounds pretty simple and practical.

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The technology is currently in the testing phase. The initial tests were completed using 16 completely different types of four wheelers in the city of Urbana-Champaign having a population of 170,000. After the preliminary rounds of the experiments, the calculations showed that the routes used by the Green GPS saved 13 percent more fuel over the fastest route and 6 percent over the shortest. According to a recent survey, the 30% of the total energy in America is consumed by the cars and other vehicular traffic. Tarek Abdelzaher, associate professor of computer science at the University of Illinois believes that if even 5% of this brown energy can be saved by this software, the saved energy can be used to completely satisfy the energy requirement of the entire information technology infrastructure in the U.S.

Impressed by these statistics and results, the National Science Foundation has decided to grant a huge sum of money for the distribution of this service through the University of Illinois’ automobile task force. Funding for the networking part of this project will be done by the Office of Naval Research. Besides this, some University graduates like Hossein Ahmadi are planning on forming an alliance with IBM through the company’s “Smarter Planet” initiative. As a part of this project, 200 or more cars in the Urbana-Champaign locality will be fitted with the Green GPS units. The vehicles include all types of cars and a few big vans. The data collected by the cars can be used by other cars of the same make and specifications if they don’t have this facility. This can be implemented in the future with the help of a social network of drivers that can share information regarding the greener routes with other drivers having the same vehicle model manufactured in the same year.

Let us hope that the service works successfully in urban areas and provides us with a useful tool for controlling our individual carbon footprints.

Image Credit: Futurity: Research News from Top Universities