MobiliseYourCity Emissions Calculator - Web version

The MobiliseYourCity Emissions Calculator aims at helping developing countries and cities to calculate transport GHG emissions for a reference year and Business-as-usual scenario (BAU) as well as a climate scenario with emission reductions from mitigation measures – the so called climate scenario. More info: https://www.mobiliseyourcity.net/mobiliseyourcity-emissions-calculator

The original MobiliseYourCity Emissions Calculator tool is an excel spreadsheet. The goal of this project is to convert it to a web version.

Why convert to the web

Moving the project to the web allows for a better maintainability and opens up to new features:

• Data can be shared between projects
• User accounts to save and store data
• The way data is filled can be improved (user on-boarding)
• Detailing the way computations are made
• Easier external contributions
• Creating specific access for partners wanting to track usage of the tool
• Ex-post integration
• Better contact between users and MYC

Who is behind the project

The original tool was developed by the German Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU) for MobiliseYourCity.

The web version of the tool is orchestrated and created by La Fabrique des Mobilités, with financial help from the French Development Agency (AFD) and valuable inputs from IFEU, MYC and the tool's users and reusers.

Scope of the project

An MVP has been defined during the first quarter of 2022, the web version began by focusing on:

• Targeted at consulting firms helping cities (not countries)
• Focused on GHG estimation for BAU (First sheet, 1A)
• Focused on passengers (no freight)

With the following features:

• Select country/city and reference year
• Create used accounts to specify profile type, save and track data
• Proper presentation of the tool
• A welcome page, with description of the tool, its goals and its relation to MYC
• Compute GHG emissions (using the ASIF methodology) with the following parameters:
  • Vehicules-kilometers travelled (vkt)
  • Occupancy and average trip length per vehicle type
  • Vkt per fuel type
  • Average energy consumption and energy efficiency
  • CO2 impact of electricity
• Improve the way data is filled
  • Progress bar to track data collection journey
  • Help in the choice of category of transport
  • Guide users in their inputs
  • Add a contact email or a way of reaching the MYC team
• Predict emissions increase based on economic and travel growth between now and 2050 if nothing is done (Business As Usual)
• Visualize output data as graphs
• Ease the understanding of computations

In 2023, the version MVP2 was released, complementing the scope to match the functionalities of the excel spreadsheet. The following features were included:

• Complete rework of the Inventory & BAU steps described in the first MVP. A project is now divided in three steps
  1. An inventory, focused only on the reference year. This is where vehicles and fuels are defined
  2. A Business as Usual (BAU) scenario, built on top of the inventory
  3. One or more Climate scenarios, to be compared to the BAU
  • Each step includes a small results page, to identify potential problems in data
• Full rework of the User Interface
• Match the features of the latest version of the offline tool (excel)
  • This includes an update on computation methods, filling option, new types of fuels such as hydrogen and an update of default emission factors
• Creation of an educational path based on the MYC guides and notes from the Excel tool, including:
  • Explanatory and illustrated texts of various calculation methods
  • Description of the required data for each step
  • Detailed tooltips for each parameter
  • Concise formulas for intermediate calculations
  • Guidance on how data can be filled
• Addition of a source entry and management system for each data point
• Addition of a note-taking field on each page, providing a space to summarize assumptions and back-of-the-envelope calculations
• Unlike MVP1, the tool now supports the input of climate scenarios, with or without prior calculations
• Addition of a page for comparing different scenarios
  • This page contains a set of configurable graphs, exportable as PNG images or CSV files
  • It also includes a summary of the sources used in the project
  • Finally, it allows for downloading all data entered into the tool in CSV format. This export facilitates the transition from the online tool to Excel if necessary
• Similar to MVP1, a project can be "validated", making it visible to other users
• Unlike MVP1, population and GDP data have been removed since they are not used in emissions calculations

2023 also includes the release of the version 2.1 - Community Edition, built with volunteer work from various contributors

• Redesign of the tool's introduction page, now more visually appealing
• Addition of new illustrations, icons, and a typeface in line with the MYC graphic design
• Significant work has been done to standardize all interface pages, accompanied by various visual enhancements
  • For example, uniform cell sizes in tables and improved handling of text and number overflows have been implemented
• These improvements affect all visible pages, as well as dynamic elements like tooltips and popups
• In addition to numerous interface changes, a few bugs have been fixed:
  • Added support for HTTPS for a more secure browsing experience
  • Fixed a bug that prevented project creation under certain conditions
  • Corrected an incorrect vkt calculation based on the order of inventory filling in "fleet" mode
  • Fixed project deletion

More information, and illustrations for the above list can be found on the Fabrique des Mobilités' wiki entry.

Technical aspects

The project is divided in a backend and a frontend, both written in typescript

• The backend is a nodejs API server based on Expressjs
• The frontend uses CreateReactApp

Authentication of users and requests is done using Keycloak. The setup of the keycloak server is considered out of scope for now.

Data is saved in an sqlite3 database.

Installation

Backend

# Install dependencies
npm install
# Create an output folder
mkdir compile
# Compile and start
npm start

The npm start script runs the local typescript compilation binary and launches the server: node_modules/typescript/bin/tsc && node compile/index.js

The API is then accessible on http://localhost:8081

A specific port can be specified using the PORT environment variable:

PORT=8081 node compile/index.js

Frontend

# Move to correct folder
cd frontend
# Install dependencies (force is required for rechart compatibility with react 18+)
npm install --force
# Compile and start
npm start

The frontend is then accessible on http://localhost:3000

To deploy on a non-development environment, it is recommended to build the frontend with npm run build and serve it using the backend. The backend is configured to statically serve files in the frontend/build/ folder.

Configurations such as backend URL can be edited in the frontend/.env file.

Contributing

Contributions to this project are welcomed, be sure to check CONTRIBUTING.md for more details.