SMARTA

What it does

SMARTA allows users to visualize various combinations of either gas/diesel, hybrid, or electric bus routes and the various insights that correspond to their changes. SMARTA also includes other historical trends and insights that are pertinent to creating successful policies. SMARTA also boasts what we believe to be the ideal policy for MARTA moving forward.

How we built it

SMARTA was built using Vite to create a React/JavaScript web application. The main web components were constructed using a combination of MapBox and Recharts. We used Node.js as our runtime environment and Vercel for deployment.

Challenges we ran into

The majority of the challenges that we ran into revolved around the usage of MapBox and using MARTA-provided coordinates in combination with it. Solving these tasks involved writing scripts to parse over 1.5 million lines of coordinates to be overlaid onto the city of Atlanta.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We engineered a pipeline to parse 1.5 million lines of MARTA data into a seamless MapBox visualization. Our standout achievement is a Dynamic Policy Simulator that instantly calculates shifts in CO₂ emissions, maintenance costs, and budgets as users toggle fleet compositions. By linking live UI sliders to our predictive modeling, we’ve created an interactive decision-making tool that proves sustainable transit is a mathematically viable reality for Atlanta.

What we learned

We learned how to optimize React for rendering larger amount of moving parts and how IMU physics can predict energy usage more accurately than GPS. Most importantly, we discovered that transit policy is most effective when it’s interactive, allowing stakeholders to visualize the immediate trade-offs between costs and environmental impact.

What's next for SMARTA

Next, we will evolve SMARTA into a Digital Twin ecosystem, using thermal and vibration diagnostics to predict mechanical failures before they happen. Our goal is to expand this model to simulate Atlanta’s NextGen Bus Network, ensuring that as we scale, MARTA's expansion remains reliable, efficient, and 100% data-driven.

Built With

• javascript
• mapbox
• node.js
• react
• recharts
• vercel
• vite