An online cycling initiative started by two members of the University of Cambridge's Geography Department has been nominated for a sustainability award.

‘Cyclestreets', a website started by Martin Lucas-Smith and Simon Nutall, encourages cyclists across the UK to explore their local area and to share information on its facilities. It provides a route planner with photos and detailed information on potential obstacles such as busy roads and roundabouts.

The website can also calculate the projected time of your journey, its topography (how many hills lie between you and your destination), and even the CO2 levels you will have saved by cycling it.

Perhaps it was this last feature which brought it to the attention of Future Friendly, a society dedicated to the promotion of more ecologically sustainable lifestyle choices. Cyclestreets is one of five initiatives up for an award which includes a prize of £10, 000.

Other initiatives include the ‘Sefton Green Gym,’ which encourages gardening as the ‘green’ alternative to spin class, and ‘Cleanstream Carpets ’ who ‘convert landfill into carpets for the community’.

Lucas-Smith and Nuttall, the inventors of Cyclestreets, believe that the site’s success lies in the fact that it provides a unique service overlooked by other online mapping facilities.

When explaining why Cyclestreets deserves to win the award they said: “Basically, car SatNav devices and existing maps such as Google Maps and StreetMap don't know about street data that is of interest for cycling, and are optimised for car routing, rather than pleasant cycling routes. CycleStreets aims to act like a knowledgable local cyclist who knows about all the shortcuts, good routes and cycle-specific infrastructure helpful for a cycle journey.”

Joe Johnson, a postgraduate student on a management course at the University agrees with the benefit of the site. “This site is pretty epic,” he said. “Other journey planners don't take into account the things that really matter to cyclists, like not having your nose stuck right up the back of a diesel engine and having to stopping at traffic lights. This site solves that problem entirely."

If the duo win the award some of the money will be channelled into promotion and design work such as improving the iPhone application, which is now available for download free of charge. This will be vital for the completion of longer journeys, where the information and maps are too numerous and detailed to remember or print out.

The prize money would also help them to extend the geographical area the website can cover, and add “much requested features such as waypoints, so that cyclists can visit a location such as a particularly scenic spot, en route.”