isaaccheng9 / travel-buddy

A web application for planning your journeys with a travel companion to analyse routes based on fuel costs and environmental impact. Developed with Flask.

Hi there, I'm Isaac! 👋

Graduated at the top of my cohort at the University of Exeter with a first-class honours degree (81%) in BSc Computer Science, ranking 1st for both overall grade and final year project. Proficient in Python, with experience in financial markets and big tech. Passionate about developing large-scale distributed systems and algorithmic optimisation.

Experience

Company	Role	Tenure
T. Rowe Price	Fixed Income Quant Developer	September 2023 – Present
T. Rowe Price	Fixed Income Quant Developer Intern	June 2022 – August 2022
IBM	Software Developer Intern	June 2021 – June 2022

Feel free to message me on LinkedIn!

Skills

Languages	Python, SQL, C++, C
Technologies	Airflow, pandas, Polars, NumPy, FastAPI, Flask, pytest, PyQt, scikit-learn, Dask, DuckDB
Tools	Git, Linux, AWS (ECS, S3, MWAA, CloudWatch), Kubernetes, Qt, Splunk, Grafana

travel-buddy's Issues

Estimate long-term costs of car ownership

Problem Statement

• Take input from the user about their estimated travel distance per week/month, and make estimations for fuel costs (and possibly other things like insurance) over the span of:
  • 1 month
  • 3 months
  • 6 months
  • 12 months
• Add suggestions based on electric vs petrol car ownership.
• This could be part of a new page called 'Your Trends'.

Allow users to save most frequently travelled routes

Users should be able to save most frequently travelled routes with a name so that they can be displayed on the route analysis page with their estimated fuel cost for that day.

Potentially, users can click the route to display it on the map.

Calculate statistics on CO2 usage for a specific journey

Calculate statistics on CO2 usage for a specific journey

Fix map positioning

Problem Statement

• In /routes, the map is misaligned vertically.
  • This could be fixed by adding a margin to the top of the side panels.
• Change the layout to have the map in full-screen, with the panels as overlays on top of this.

Implement address autocomplete

Modify routes planner page to include real-time address autocomplete

Add calorie statistics

Add statistics for calories burned by transport method

Create page for editing profile

Problem Statement

• The user should have a page to edit their user profile details, including:
  • First and last name
  • Profile picture
  • Bio
  • Driver status

Note that the functionality is outside the scope of this issue - only the user interface is required here.

Create the database structure.

Breakdown

• Create an SQLite3 database structure with some tables for the key features.
  • Account system (user ID, first name, surname, email, password)
  • User profiles (user ID, driver or not)
  • Journeys (journey ID, driver ID, location from, location to)
  • Driver profile (user ID, driver rating)
  • Passenger profile (user ID, passenger rating)
• Post the file on the Discord text channel database.

Create user profile page after registration

Breakdown

• After successful registration, a default user profile should be created in the database.
  • username
  • first_name
  • last_name
  • is_driver: 0 by default
  • bio: Empty by default
  • photo
• The user should be forwarded to their profile page at /profile.
• Viewing other users' profiles should be accessible via /profile/{username}.

Add section to add user cars (IMPORTANT)

Each user should have 1 car for now.

Each car has a make, owner (username), mpg, and fuel type (petrol/diesel).

Hide unnecessary details in route analysis

Problem Statement

• Unnecessary details are currently shown in route analysis, such as ridiculous calorie counts and £0.00 fuel costs.
• Add some checks so that only necessary details are displayed.
  • For example, calories may not be shown if the journey is >10km.

Create user profile web page.

Breakdown

• Profile picture
• Bio
• Top statistics (not all statistics - this should be on another page)
• Driver or not (no by default)
  • Assume everyone's a passenger.

Add ability to block users

Problem Statement

• Users should be able to block each other.
  • This means they can't view each others' profiles, carpools, etc.

Wrap text in carpool listings

Problem Statement

Text isn't currently being wrapped in carpool listings, which means long locations can go off the page (see screenshots below).

Desktop View

Mobile/Responsive View

Fix database path bug

Problem Statement

• Some developers are having problems with the path of the database - could be caused by MacOS/Windows differences?
• Create a file with environment variables, and point towards that in all files where the database path is required.

Add api calls to find route distance and duration between 2 points across different modes of transport

Functionality to enter 2 addresses and return information on the distance between the points and the duration of travel for multiple modes of transport

Create global stats page

Problem Statement

• Create a page for global stats based on the data of all users in the app. This may include:
  • Total distance travelled from carpooling
  • Total CO2 reduced from carpooling
  • Total fuel costs saved from carpooling
  • Total number of carpools

Add ability to interact with available carpools

Problem Statement

• Users should be able to perform actions on a carpool page such as:
  • Updating information (if created by user)
  • Adding and removing themselves (if not created by user)
    • Number of seats should be decremented accordingly
  • Commenting

Create user stats page

Breakdown

• Sections to include are:
  • Monitor route statistics (CO2, average speed, time)
  • Recommendations for alternate methods (walking, cycling)
  • Time taken for each of these alternatives (you would need to leave x minutes earlier)
  • CO2 saving for this journey (plus saving over time)

Refresh carpool listings upon successfully creating a new carpool ride

Problem Statement

• Carpool listings are not currently refreshed when a new ride is successfully created.
  • This may confuse the user, so we should look to refresh it upon successful creation.

Add support for fuel prices on a per-country basis

Problem Statement

• Add support for different countries with a fuel price API.
  • Fuel prices vary per country, so the API must account for this.
  • Ensure that the fuel prices are displayed in the local currency of the origin country once this is implemented to avoid confusing the user.
• Could support a fixed number of countries (UK, US, France, Germany, Canada) with separate APIs, or use one API that supports a wide range of countries.

Add ability to create carpool requests and carpool rides

Breakdown

• Section for drivers and a section for passengers.
  • Offering car pooling/searching for car pooling.

Create functionality to edit user profile

Problem Statement

• The user should be able to edit their user profile details, including:
  • First and last name
  • Profile picture
  • Bio
  • Driver status

Change password requirements to be easier

Problem Statement

• Password requirements are unnecessarily strict on the front-end.
  • I would suggest changing it to be a minimum of eight characters and one number to match the backend.
• High priority as the mismatch of the backend is confusing and doesn't allow some passwords that should be allowed.

Integrate Transport for London API for enhanced public transport features

Problem Statement

• Integrate TfL's API to support more detailed public transport info in the route analysis section.
  • For example, some people may want to avoid the tube.
• Detect routes that only involve London to enable these additional features.

Conduct market research

Breakdown

• Research on existing products for CO2 emissions
• Research on existing solutions for route alternative recommendations
• Research on apis for data collection
• Research on public opinions the issues at hand

Fix uploading avatars

Problem Statement

• Uploading new avatars shows up immediately on the settings page, but it doesn't seem to save properly.
• When you go to the profile page of the user, it doesn't show the image.

Embed map to route planner with directions displayed

Embed map to route planner with directions displayed using google maps api

Create page for viewing available carpools, and a carpool listing

Problem Statement

• Users should be able to view available carpools at /carpools.
  • Carpools available (all)
  • Carpools joined
  • Carpools created
  • Carpools history (separated by joined/created?)
• From this page, they should be able to view a carpool listing at /carpools/{journey_id}.
  • Can join the carpool if seats available > 0.
  • Can leave the carpool.

Add ability to change password

Problem Statement

• Users should be able to change their password from the 'Edit Profile' page.
  • They must enter their current password, their new password, and their new password repeated (for confirmation).

Implement route statistic and travel recommendation data in front end

Implement route statistic and travel recommendation data in front end

Add feature to find the cheapest prices for fuel based on your current location.

Breakdown

• Optimise a combination of distance to the petrol station and price to provide recommendations.
  • Consider using an API to find the prices, such as this.
• May work with a crowd sourcing system similar to Waze?
  • Users could give feedback for recommendations (thumbs up/down system?)

Implement rate limiting for API calls

Problem Statement

• Rate limiting would be useful for database calls, and especially API calls.
  • Google Maps API records the usage and charges once a certain limit is hit.
  • Database calls are computationally expensive, and mass requests will quickly cause a slowdown, especially before eventual migration from SQLite to PostgreSQL.

Create user profile page functionality

Problem Statement

• The user profile page needs some basic functions to display information about the user, which may include:
  • First and last name
  • Bio
  • Profile picture
  • Top three stats

Hide carpool listings with a pickup timestamp in the past

Hide carpool offers with pickup timestamp in the past.

Calculate stats for the global stats page

Problem Statement

• Add a page for global stats at /stats
• Add calculations for global stats based on the data of all users in the app. This may include:
  • Total distance travelled from carpooling
  • Total CO2 reduced from carpooling
  • Total fuel costs saved from carpooling
  • Total number of carpools

Fix Not Found error when searching for route with Google Maps API

Problem Statement

• Searching a route in /routes currently doesn't work.

Update carpool listing to include route analysis data on journey

Update carpool listing to include route analysis data on journey

Create the Django app.

Validate address in google maps api call

Validate address in google maps api call
Account for journeys with no available route for a certain transport type

Add link to view carpool route on route planner

Add a link to view carpool route on route planner from carpool listings screen

Add backend checks for Carpool creation to make sure all data was filled out

Users can submit a form without some data (by bypassing the html "required" tag) causing the backend to crash.

Add calculations for route statistics and alternative recommendations

Breakdown

• Monitor route statistics (CO2, average speed, time)
• Recommendations for alternate methods (walking, cycling)
• Time taken for each of these alternatives (you would need to leave x minutes earlier)
• CO2 saving for this journey (plus saving over time)

Calculate statistics on fuel usage and price at local value for a specific route

Calculate statistics on fuel usage and price at local value for a specific route

Use statistics on CO2, fuel usage, and travel duration to recommend alternative travel options

Use statistics on CO2, fuel usage, and travel duration to recommend alternative travel options

Add address autocomplete to carpool creation

Add address autocomplete to carpool creation

Add prices to carpool requests and rides

Problem Statement

• We're currently missing prices for carpool requests and rides, which is a significant omission.
  • Passengers need to know how much they need to pay the driver, and drivers need to know what people are willing to pay.

Add feature to view and join an existing carpool

Problem Statement

• Users should be able to view available carpools, select a carpool, and join it.

Create interface for users to interact with a carpool ride listing

Problem Statement

• Users should be able to perform actions on a carpool page such as:
  • Viewing details about the carpool listing
  • Adding and removing themselves (if not created by user)
    • Number of seats should be decremented accordingly
  • Viewing passenger list for the carpool

Create user account system.

Breakdown

• Fields:
  • First Name
  • Surname
  • Email address
  • Password
• Consider looking into potential built-in Django account system?