njfinney/Africa_Railway_Calculator

Hosting a simple website to allow calculation of railways distances and associated carbon emissions in Africa. # Africa Railway Distance and Emissions Calculator v2 A web-based tool for calculating railway distances, travel times, and carbon emissions across **all 49 mainland African countries**. Built with OpenStreetMap data, optimized pathfinding algorithms, and a hybrid data architecture that combines pre-extracted static files with live API fallback. 🌐 **Live Demo:** njfinney.github.io --- ## 🎯 What This Tool Does - **Calculate actual railway distances** between any two stations across Africa - **Estimate travel times** based on average freight speeds (35 km/h) - **Calculate shipment times** including loading, unloading, and customs delays - **Compute CO₂e emissions** per metric ton of cargo - **Visualize routes** on an interactive map - **Identify network disconnections** with gap analysis --- ## 🌍 Coverage ### 49 Mainland African Countries | Region | Countries | |--------|-----------| | **North Africa** | Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia | | **West Africa** | Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo | | **Central Africa** | Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon | | **East Africa** | Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda | | **Southern Africa** | Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe | --- ## 🏗️ Architecture ### Hybrid Data Approach The v2 architecture dramatically reduces API calls and improves reliability: ``` ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ User Interface │ │ (HTML + Tailwind CSS + Leaflet) │ ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Application Logic │ │ ┌─────────────────┐ …