Bristol City Council
Bristol City Council
2022
Enhanced Green Routes for Bristol
Exploring how intelligent routing could guide Bristol residents towards healthier, happier and more sustainable walking journeys.
Data Partnerships
Purpose
We worked with Bristol City Council and Go Jauntly to explore how a bespoke Green Routes feature within the Go Jauntly walking app could encourage healthier, more sustainable walking journeys in Bristol. Our approach provided alternative routing options calculated using multiple environmental quality benefits — greener, quieter, less polluted and more appealing journeys — promoting active travel and improved mental wellbeing.
Approach
Created the Tranquil City Index for Bristol — a geospatial dataset combining noise, air quality, green infrastructure, blue infrastructure and tranquillity data using machine learning
Designed and tested three UX/UI approaches to display route benefits to users
Integrated environmental quality data into Go Jauntly's routing algorithm to generate Green Routes
Ran focus group testing in two inner-city areas (Barton Hill and Filwood/Knowle West) with 14 participants
Compared "Fast Routes" vs "Green Routes" through baseline and follow-up surveys over a two-month study period
Measured in-app usage and environmental benefit calculations across 2,188 Green Routes
Results
Our findings demonstrated that Green Routes offer meaningful benefits across environmental quality, user experience and behavioural outcomes. Users consistently preferred and benefited from choosing the greener alternative.
Green Routes offered 15% more green and natural elements than the fastest routes
20% more time in quiet areas compared to fast routes
9% less NO2 exposure and 3% less PM2.5 exposure
50% of participants felt happier after taking a Green Route (vs 30% on fast routes)
70% felt more relaxed (vs 20% on fast routes)
86% said they'd choose the Green Route (vs 50% for the fast route)
36% more likely to choose walking when offered a Green Route
80% of participants found the routes quieter and less polluted
City-wide potential: increase time spent in nature by 2.9 million hours annually, reduce carbon emissions by 50,000 tonnes/year