MANILA — A smartphone app developed by students from the University of the Philippines to track carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and save fuel has won the Shell Eco-marathon Global Finals.

Alamat UP’s CERO (CO2 Emission Reduction Operation) provides a platform to monitor fuel consumption, as well as eco-driving tips and practices.

The group said, the application also includes real-time eco-driving notifications, optimal route mapping, after-trip analysis, and a fuel consumption wallet for budgeting.

“CERO is a smartphone app that mainly uses fuel savings to encourage users to drive more efficiently. CERO provides driver feedback, fuel-efficient routing, and emissions analysis,” the group said in a Facebook post.

The team is composed of the following: Matthew Solomon Arjonillo, Esther Pauline Bacay, John Cagape, Paolo Ricco Gauma, Althea Patricia Laza, FuLin Li, Aleandro Sta. Ana, Jan Goran Tomacruz, and Marc Adrian Yu.

During the group’s presentation, Arjonillo said their project would help mitigate the effects of vehicle emissions in the environment.

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“In a nutshell, CERO is a smartphone app that incentivises users and provides policy makers the data to collectively mitigate the effects of vehicle emissions in the environment,” he said.

“I’m very proud of the fact that we were able to come up with an innovative solution that does not use additional hardware and is cheap enough for anyone to use,” Bacay, for her part, said.

The Philippine team won for the first time in the competition, besting regional winners from Americas and Europe: University of Alberta in Canada, and TED University in Turkey, respectively. The announcement was made last Thursday.

The team received $1,500 in prize, and $750 more for being the Asia/Middle East winner during the regionals’ awarding last November.