Fraichoù: Axel Aubry’s web app for cooler routes during the heatwave

A French engineer has launched Fraichoù, a web application designed to help people find the best routes during a heatwave by factoring in shade, trees, and how close you are to water points. This is something mainstream navigation apps do not offer, and it could mean walking in temperatures 3 or 4°C lower.

Google Maps is excellent at suggesting the shortest routes and it is packed with helpful tools, especially with Gemini. But in a heatwave, Google’s navigation app is no help if what you want is a cooler walk that takes in shaded streets, parks, and places to cool down near water. That gap is exactly what Fraichoù aims to fill.

The French engineer Axel Aubry, quoted by TF1, says the idea came from noticing that standard apps are built primarily to optimise for the fastest or shortest journey.

Fraichoù: finding the coolest route, not just the quickest

“I thought it would be a good idea to list the shady spots to make things easier for me in cities I don’t know,” the engineer explains.

On the Fraichoù website, you simply enter your starting point, your destination, and your departure time. The tool then offers the shortest route, the most balanced route, and the coolest route.

The data behind Fraichoù’s shade, trees and water points

To deliver this experience, Axel Aubry combined several datasets: BD TOPO to estimate building heights, OpenStreetMap to identify parks and water points, and municipal data on tree cover.

A vote is under way to choose the next cities

By merging these sources, the site can surface the coolest routes for a specific moment of the day during a heatwave. According to the developer, using the app can make it possible to feel 3 or 4°C cooler compared with more conventional routes.

For now, however, Fraichoù’s map only provides these features in Rennes, Lille, and Paris. A public vote is already running to decide which cities will be added next, and improvements to the algorithm are also planned.

A free site today, with plans to professionalise

Fraichoù is very new and currently offers its features free of charge. However, Axel Aubry told TF1 that he is already considering professionalising the website and rolling out additional services.