CalCommuter, an online web application developed by David Smith Consulting Limited (DSC), aims to assist organisations in understanding and acting on Scope 3 travel-to-work emissions. The application creates personalised commute travel plans for employees based on employees’ responses to a survey regarding their commute and work patterns.

The tool works out the cost, duration and emissions of home working days and every viable commute from home to their worksite. The goal is for organisations to take action on their workforce’s commute emissions to support sustainable workplace travel plans. It is currently being tested with East Lothian Council in Scotland.

David Smith Consulting wanted to expand the functionality of their existing CalCommuter application to provide data-driven insights on the greatest opportunities for commute emissions reduction in an organisation.

The IEA was contracted to help develop the ‘LERO module’ (Latent Emission Reduction Opportunity module) for this additional functionality.

Process

The project to develop the LERO module was funded by Innovate UK through its Business Growth initiative and involved several key tasks:

  • Data preparation: Our data team ingested, cleaned and sorted CalCommuter survey and results data for analysis. Tests of their API feed were also performed, which identified some edge cases and improvements.
  • Car sharing opportunities: We conducted modelling to identify potential car sharing opportunities among employees.
  • Emission-reduction opportunities: We developed a comprehensive modelling exercise to identify ‘latent’ commute emission reduction opportunities by worksite and mode of transport.

Solution

By the end of the project we provided DSC with a Python library containing the core logic required to support the initial requirements of the Latent Emission Reduction Opportunity (LERO) module. This library serves as a foundation for integrating the new functionality into the CalCommuter application. The Python library was delivered to the client via GitHub.

Impact

The library code developed represents a significant milestone towards deploying the Latent Emission Reduction Opportunity (LERO) module within the CalCommuter application. It provides a solid foundation for future development and will offer organizations valuable insights into optimising commute emissions.

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