Project Description
SchoolCarpool is an iOS app that solves the daily chaos of school drop-offs by connecting nearby families into safe, organized carpool communities. Think "Tinder for school carpools" parents’ swipe to match with compatible families, then coordinate pickups through the app.
The Problem We're Solving
Every School Morning in Australia:
800,000+ families struggle with stressful school runs
Traffic chaos around schools increases by 300% during drop-off times
Working parents lose 45+ minutes daily on transport logistics
Safety concerns as 42% of child accidents happen near schools
Isolated families have no community support for transport emergencies
Real Impact in Canberra:
Parents sitting in 20-minute traffic queues just to drop off kids
Children walking unsafe routes because parents can't drive every day
Families spending $50+ weekly on fuel for short school trips
No backup plan when a parent is sick or has work emergency.
Data Story
We combined government transport data (ACT school transport datasets, public bus routes, congestion reports) with real-time traffic maps to identify pain points in school commuting. Using graph-based analytics, we mapped potential family-to-family connections and optimized safe carpool routes.
Our prototype application Carpool demonstrates how technology can:
Reduce school drop-off congestion
Promote sustainable, shared rides
Improve road and transport safety for kids
Support working parents balancing schedules
The graph-matching system is core to our solution, ensuring that families are intelligently connected in ways that maximize convenience and safety.
Dataset story -
Garran Primary School is having maximum number of students coming from a single sa1 i.e. an average of 27.
128 number of students go from sa1 80109110207 to Garran Primary School everyday.
We have taken centroids of all the sa1 by using data from Australian Statistical Geography Standard.
We downloaded a digital boundary file named Statistical Areas Level 1 - 2021 - Shapefile from the data source.
Then utilized QGIS software to calculate the centroids from it.
The top two locations with most students travelling to schools are 80104111801 and 80104103410.
Both of them are having ample of bus stops within 5km of distance from their centroids.
Five sa1 has been identified within ACT which are having minimum bus stops distance of more than 5km from their centroids.
These sa1 are 80103111301,80104104302,80104104301,80103111401 and 80103111301.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XDz9IChxOIUdQedeI3tdmREA7OrHy0si/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FCMeKTtH2ZcARyMDQ_US5mo3w_uY1Tl1/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QqUK3Md5mjR6Ya-X7rf-IRo5t9uJMq2C/view
