SafeNav is promising because it responds to a widespread real-world concern that most route tools ignore. The current evidence is early, but the potential audience is very large and the concept could make everyday journeys feel safer for many people. 

SafeNav is tackling a common gap in walking navigation. Most route apps optimise for speed, not safety, which can leave people walking alone at night or in unfamiliar areas without enough information about lighting, activity levels or local risk. That matters for students, women, night-shift workers, tourists, older people and anyone who wants more confidence about a route. SafeNav adds a safety-aware layer by comparing walking routes using historical crime, nearby activity, environmental signals, weather and machine-learning risk scoring. It also includes live trip sharing and arrival confirmation for reassurance. The current impact is technical but encouraging. In a retrospective backtest using London route data, SafeNav selected routes that later aligned with lower pedestrian-crime density in 34 out of 44 comparable route pairs, or 77.3% of cases. Security testing was also strong, with 48 passes, 0 failures and 3 warnings across 51 test cases. This shows the concept can help people make more informed walking decisions rather than simply accepting the fastest route.