🚂 NextStop

❓ What is it?

NextStop is a sustainable train companion app designed for the cities of the future, inspired by TripView but built for a greener, more connected future.

NextStop provides reliable train updates from actual passengers, allowing commuters to communicate and make better travel choices. The app also connects friends on the move, so journeys can be shared and planned together. To encourage sustainable habits, NextStop informs users of their carbon footprint contribution, allowing them to visualise their own impact.

💡 What are our values?

NextStop aims to incentivise urban public transport adoption, by combining real-time community insights, social connectivity, and sustainable tracking. We want to see a future where people actively think about their carbon footprint and empower them to encourage others to make sustainable choices.

NextStop, the next stop to sustainability. Building a forward-thinking culture for future cities where people actively make cleaner decisions.

Inspiration

Existing apps like TripView focus mainly on timetables but fail to foster community or sustainability. With the hackathon theme "Cities of the Future," we set out to design a platform that not only makes commuting easier but also encourages eco-friendly choices. By gamifying carbon footprint reduction and enabling friends to travel together, NextStop transforms public transport into a social, sustainable, and rewarding experience.

What it does

NextStop empowers commuters with real-time, crowdsourced updates from fellow passengers—covering seat availability, carriage cleanliness, and even ticket inspections. Beyond reliable travel info and into the social aspect, it connects friends so they can coordinate journeys. Finally, for the environmental aspect the app tracks user's historical carbon emissions over a period of time and allow users to view this data on a graphed timeline, helping users stay motivated to make greener choices every day and develop sustainable habits.

How we built it

• Django for backend infrastructure
• Python packages for data handling and APIs
• Expo + React Native for a cross-platform mobile experience

Challenges we ran into

• Finding an idea that truly set us apart from existing transport apps took time, but we’re proud of the unique vision we landed on
• Navigating new frameworks and tools was tricky at first, but turned into a great learning opportunity
• Integrating with complex APIs—some of which were poorly documented—was frustrating, but we managed to make it work

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Picking up and applying a brand-new framework under time pressure
• Building strong teamwork and collaboration throughout the hackathon
• Creating a functional prototype that reflects our vision for sustainable cities

What we learned

• A lot about full-stack web and mobile development
• Practical experience with Django, React Native, and APIs

What's next for NextStop

• Scaling the app to include more transport modes (buses, ferries, etc.)
• Growing the community aspect so commuting feels social, connected, and fun
• Including more gamifaction by adding a leaderboard
• Allowing friends to see each other's emissions savings and compare

👤 Participants

Team Member	Contribution
Adam Schon	Frontend
Alexander Tram	Backend
Anthony Nguyen	Backend
Luka Pustahija	Frontend + UI Design
Sven Willet	Backend

🖥 Technology Stack

• Django
• Expo
  • React Native