Fighting climate change is as easy as playing a game on your mobile phone thanks to a new app making its Canadian debut in Victoria.
My Open Road is a mobile app that uses rewards to encourage people to choose energy-saving modes of transportation.
The app was developed in the U.S. — where it has close to 6,000 users — and recently launched in Canada with its first headquarters in Victoria.
“People on the Island are so conscientious already. If it’s going to work anywhere, it will work here,” said regional co-ordinator Margaret Trajan, who has an office in Fan Tan Alley.
In 2014, the app won the Envisioneering Innovation and Design Award at the Consumer Electronics Show — the annual launch pad for cutting-edge technology trends.
Trajan said the majority of the app’s Canadian 1,500 users are in Victoria.
My Open Road is a non-profit organization that partners with local businesses. Users of the app navigate it like a game, logging every form of alternative transportation they use — including walking, biking and riding the bus. Users build up a social responsibility score and can unlock deals.
There are 19 Victoria businesses partnered with the app.
“They are all enviro-friendly companies,” Trajan said. These include bicycle and repair shops, coffee shops, clothing stores, and food and wellness businesses.
The company’s goal is to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions worldwide by more than five million tonnes within five years.
It launched a contest this week that will give a free one-month bus pass to the Victoria user who reduces their carbon footprint by the greatest amount.
Trajan said the app doesn’t rely on the honour system but uses patented technology to detect travel modes, right down to bus routes and schedules.
“Unless you’re in a car right behind the bus, it would be hard to cheat,” she said.
