Electric bike users may be playing their part in cutting down of pollution, but they still end up breathing polluted air during their rides. However, if you ride on a Cowboy bike, you can now avoid pollution hotspots through enhanced route planning and improve your health.
Cowboy has partnered with BreezoMeter to add air quality information to the navigation dashboard in its app. The app can now show a real-time heatmap of air quality at a street-level resolution of five meters, contextual information about different levels of air quality, and most importantly of all, the ability to plan a route that avoids the most polluted areas. It may not be the fastest route, but it’s a cleaner ride for your lungs.
Routes can be planned with air quality as the most important factor, and users can choose between Excellent, Very Good, Moderate, Poor, and Very Poor quality. Each route will vary the length of time to your destination, so you can choose the best compromise between the air breathed and how quickly you need to arrive.
“We are opening a new chapter for smart urban transportation with our Navigation feature. We are the first e-bike manufacturer ever to include real-time air quality in the calculation of our route suggestions, offering our riders a healthier alternative for their way through everyday life.” said Tanguy Goretti, CTO and co-founder of Cowboy.
As to how the pollution level is calculated, BreezoMeter says it uses multiple sources of air pollution information “like traffic patterns, millions of connected cars, satellite data, weather, active fire’s smoke models, meteorological information, models and land cover in addition to the information provided by monitoring stations.”
The Cowboy app is available for both iOS and Android. As well as the new air pollution and route planning features, it allows your electric bike to automatically unlock when it senses you are nearby. The live dashboard also offers ride stats including speed traveled, distance covered, and how long your ride took. The Cowboy bike costs from 2,290 euros ($2,700).
