{
  "id": 13674023,
  "title": "SmogCheck - offline",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/11/smogcheck-offline",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-11T07:45:04.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/abdullah_amin_0019da25f92/smogcheck-offline-68a"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "SmogCheck is an offline walking-route planner designed for Lahore's smog season. Users ask it in plain English where they can take a 3 km walk from a specific location, and it generates a loop that avoids major traffic arteries and passes through parks. During peak smog, the conventional advice is to stay indoors, but people still need to exercise, and SmogCheck offers a safer alternative. By default, map applications provide the shortest route, which often involves busy roads. SmogCheck selects quieter streets and parks, resulting in a lower exposure to smog. It relies on proxies for exposure, such as road class and proximity to parks and mapped trees. The planner is suitable for anyone in Lahore who wants to walk or run during smog season without sharing their daily routes with cloud services. The system uses offline data and tools like OSMnx, NetworkX, GeoPandas, and Folium to generate the routes. During a test, SmogCheck found a route through a park with 17% of the path being on major roads, compared to 61% on major roads for the shortest path. The route was 4,653 meters long with 1.1 km of extra walking, but it reduced time spent on arterial roads by 84%.",
  "summary": "This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass What I Built SmogCheck is an offline walking-route planner for Lahore's smog season. You ask it, in plain English, something like \"Where can I take a 3 km walk from Gulberg?\" , and it plans a loop that stays off the big traffic arteries and goes through a park. During peak smog, the usual advice is \"stay…",
  "key_points": [
    "SmogCheck is an offline walking-route planner for Lahore's smog season.",
    "It generates 3 km loops avoiding major traffic arteries and parks.",
    "Route through park had 17% on major roads vs 61% in shortest path."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}