City Scout | Devpost

Inspiration

Google Maps has, on several occasions, routed users into dangerous areas, leading to serious consequences. Notable incidents include a tourist being fatally shot in a Brazilian favela after being misdirected, hijackings in South Africa, detours through high-crime neighborhoods in Atlanta, and tourists getting stranded on unsafe roads in Norway and Colorado. In Hawaii, some users were even led across hazardous lava fields. These incidents often stem from the app prioritizing speed over safety, lacking crime data integration, and failing to account for local context. While Google has started implementing features to avoid unsafe areas, the coverage remains limited, and users are advised to stay cautious, cross-check routes, and avoid unfamiliar shortcuts.

What it does

Existing navigation apps prioritize speed and convenience but often neglect user safety, frequently guiding travelers through crime-prone areas or hazardous intersections without warning. Numerous real-life incidents highlight this critical oversight—tourists and commuters unknowingly entering unsafe neighborhoods because their apps lack crucial local safety insights. City Scout was inspired by the need to empower users with tools to safely explore urban environments, allowing them to confidently "live like a local" by avoiding potential dangers while enjoying authentic city experiences.

How we built it

The integration process involves three key steps. First, we’ll fetch road network data using the Azure Maps Route API. Next, we overlay crime data sourced from public platforms, such as city crime reports. Finally, we apply a gradient-based pathfinding method to calculate the safest routes based on these inputs.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the challenges we ran into involved managing real time routing accuracy as well as assigning crime rates from the databases we obtain from the city of Houston Police Department.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Some accomplishments we are proud of include training the AI model as well as incorporating the data into our database

What we learned

We had little experience working with Azure services, so this helped us to become more familiars with it. We also learned the importance of visualization and how an easy interface can attract many people to using it.

What's next for City Scout

We hope that this tool will become a stable application for people looking to plan trip or to just become acquainted with their area in the convenience of a single application.