Figure 1:
Daily bicycle transits by
date. This graph shows a
nice trend of more cycling in
the summer months and less
cycling in the winter. There
are two outliers: June 1 and
Sept. 8.
data was ready for analysis. The 2012
year data was “cleaner” than the 2013
data, so that is what is used here.
Unlike many data sets, the historic
weather information is also included.
While this doesn’t sound like a big deal,
it makes analysis much easier. It is natural to ask if the weather, as measured by
daily average outside air temperature,
has an effect on cyclists.
We can also use this data to think
about trail utilization during the week as
opposed to the weekend. This is interesting because in major cities, bicycle trails
are not just for recreation but are also
used by a large number of commuters
for work. Here, the “WEEKDAY()” function in Excel was handy to identify the
weekdays vs. weekends. We have chosen to compare the behavior of cyclists
Figure 2: Daily bicycle
transits as a function
of temperature. Each
rise in daily average
temperature of
1 degree Fahrenheit
translates to approximately 10 additional
riders (Regression
p-value = 0).
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