15-Minute City Score

Check how well your location meets the 15-minute city criteria.

Algorithm Description

The 15-minute city score algorithm follows these steps:

  1. Identify key place categories essential for urban life (e.g., grocery stores, healthcare, education, public transport, leisure).
  2. Retrieve a list of places in these categories using Google Places API, within a 1 km radius of the specified location.
  3. Filter the results to remove duplicate or irrelevant places based on type and relevance.
  4. For categories where user ratings matter (e.g., shops, restaurants), fetch and analyze their average ratings and number of reviews.
  5. Calculate walking times to each place using the Google Directions API, considering real pedestrian pathways and obstacles.
  6. Exclude locations that take more than 15 minutes to walk to.
  7. Assess the coverage of essential place categories—higher scores for locations that provide a balanced mix of amenities.
  8. Compute the final index (1-100) based on:
    • Percentage of covered categories
    • Ratio of excluded places due to distance
    • Average rating and number of reviews of included places
    • Diversity of place types (e.g., multiple grocery stores, schools, healthcare options)

Note: Due to the cost of data retrieved from Google Maps, the algorithm currently calculates only an approximate 15-minute city index.