0 500 1000 1500
Five- M in u t e A n a lyst
Winter Weekday
Winter Weekend
Summer Weekday
Summer Weekend
Figure 3: Boxplots of winter and summer behaviors, weekday vs. weekend. Winter days have, on average, fewer transits on weekends than weekdays. In the summer, this trend is reversed. The winter
weekday and weekend behavior is similar (p = .66), but one could argue that the summer weekend
vs. weekday behavior is different (p = .056).
during “winter” (January/February) and
“summer” (June/July).
Figure 3 may suggest that commuters are the major contributors to trail
usage in the winter, and “sport” riders are the contrib utors in the summer
months. Conversely, it may be that the
winter riders have made the investment
in proper winter “kit” because they have
to, and use the same kit on the weekends to ride.
In conclusion, this is a rich data set,
and our analysis here has just scraped
the surface, and we hope that some of
you will take an interest in it as well.
A note on software: Longtime readers will note that I sometimes use Excel,
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sometimes use R and sometimes use
both in the same article. While both have
their strengths, I found parsing XML data
to be easier in Excel, and Boxplots to be
easier to build in R. ❙
Harrison Schramm (harrison.schramm@gmail.
com) is an operations research professional in
the Washington, D.C., area. He is a member of
INFORMS and a Certified Analytics Professional
(CAP).
NOTES & REFERENCES
1. For a map see: http://www.bikearlington.com/
tasks/sites/bike/assets/File/Arlington-Loop.jpg.
2. See http://www.bikearlington.com/pages/
biking-in-arlington/counting-bikes-to-plan-forbikes/data-for-developers/. From here, you can
create an XML query and pull the data into your
favorite analysis package.
w w w. i n f o r m s . o r g