CO2 Emission Tracker

Project Overview

The Porsche Emission Tracker is a comprehensive iOS application developed as part of an interdisciplinary project between the Media University Stuttgart and Porsche AG. Its primary goal is to encourage sustainable transportation choices among Porsche employees by making them more aware of their daily carbon footprint. The app automatically detects commutes and business trips, calculates the corresponding CO₂ emissions, and translates them into a point-based gamification system.

The Challenge

The core challenge was to create a seamless and engaging user experience that could motivate behavioral change without being intrusive. This required a robust background tracking system that could accurately identify different modes of transport (walking, cycling, car, train) while being mindful of battery consumption. Additionally, the app needed a scalable backend to manage user data, challenges, and leaderboards, all while ensuring data privacy and security.

Key Features

• Automatic Trip Tracking: Utilizes CoreLocation and CoreMotion to automatically detect, record, and classify trips in the background with minimal user intervention.
• CO₂ Emission Calculation: Accurately calculates carbon emissions for each trip based on the distance traveled and the detected mode of transport.
• Gamification Engine: Features a sophisticated points system where users are rewarded for choosing sustainable options. Users can participate in time-based challenges (e.g., "cycle 50km in a week") to earn bonus points.
• Interactive Leaderboards: Displays rankings for both individuals and teams (departments), fostering friendly competition and encouraging collective effort.
• Detailed Trip History: Provides users with a comprehensive log of their past trips, including map views, distances, and calculated emissions, allowing them to track their progress over time.
• User Profile and Customization: Allows users to manage their profile, view their statistics, and set personal sustainability goals.
• Business vs. Private Trip Classification: A simple swipe interface lets users classify trips, ensuring that only relevant business travel is counted towards official company metrics.

Technical Deep Dive

Frontend: The entire user interface was built natively for iOS using SwiftUI, Apple's modern declarative UI framework. This allowed for the rapid development of a clean, responsive, and interactive UI that feels at home on the platform. MapKit was integrated to provide rich, interactive maps for trip history visualization.

Backend & Data: CloudKit was chosen as the backend-as-a-service to handle all data persistence and synchronization. This provided a secure and scalable solution for storing user profiles, trip data, teams, and challenges without the need to manage a separate server infrastructure. Repositories were structured to manage data models for Users, Trips, Vehicles, and Teams, ensuring a clean separation of concerns.

DevOps/Deployment: The project was managed and version-controlled within a standard Xcode project structure. It was configured for deployment on iOS devices, with entitlements set up for CloudKit services, background location updates, and motion activity access. The app was built to target modern iOS versions, ensuring compatibility and performance.

Personal Learnings

This project was a fantastic opportunity to build a full-featured, data-driven application from the ground up using native iOS technologies. I gained deep experience in implementing complex features like background location and activity tracking, ensuring efficient battery usage. Working with CloudKit provided valuable insights into designing data models for a cloud-based backend and managing asynchronous data flows. The collaboration with Porsche AG also taught me how to translate business requirements into technical solutions within a corporate context.