Can the right information make our daily commuting journeys healthier? eBike innovators Cowboy partnered with BreezoMeter to achieve exactly this. With the launch of their Cleanest Route app feature, Cowboy addresses rising air quality awareness and desire for healthier commuting within the city.
Read The Cleanest Route Case Study
Learn how Cowboy leverages BreezoMeter’s air quality information to give eBike riders the gift of health-informed travel while planning their routes.
Read The Case Study
The Need for Healthier Cycle Routes
Research by the European Commission suggests cyclists inhale more air pollutants than motorists in traffic, mainly due to faster, deeper breathing than that of passive commuters traveling by car or bus.
Cowboy’s mission was to promote bicycle use over cars whenever possible and help users avoid unnecessary traffic pollution. They sought to develop a custom navigation system that enables riders to prioritize good air quality and opt for less polluted, healthier daily journeys in the city.
“Since its inception, Cowboy has always strived to deliver the most innovative technology to users,” said Tanguy Goretti, Cowboy Co-Founder & CTO. “Providing real-time air quality was a step further in that direction, made possible by teaming up with BreezoMeter.”
Integrating Air Quality Data to Give Users More Travel Options
Using BreezoMeter’s 5 meter resolution air quality data, Cowboy can now suggest the best route in terms of both speed and pollution exposure. The app visualizes air quality along a route, making invisible hazards visible and quantifying total pollutant exposure in μg/m3.
When users dock their phone to the bike mount, the app serves as a ride dashboard, enabling riders to monitor the status of their bike, their journey progression, and air quality at their location and along the route ahead.
The app also notifies riders as air quality worsens or improves along their journey, empowering user decision-making in real time and optimizing safe and healthy trips according to dynamic environmental changes.
Two Thirds of Riders Choose Slower Route to Benefit from Better Air Quality
After becoming the first e-bike maker to include a navigate-by-air quality feature in its app, Cowboy began to garner public attention, with publications like The Next Web clamoring that “Every navigation app should have Cowboy’s air-quality e-bike route feature”.
The Cowboy App has continued to see increased usage after launching a number of new features – to date, the app has seen over 10 million rides.
Surveying their riders, Cowboy also discovered that two-thirds of users “sometimes” or “frequently” take a slower route to benefit from better air quality and less car traffic.
These insights enable Cowboy to inform the development of new features and ensure the eBike brand leads the market for innovation by aligning environmental insights with user behavior and demand.
