Research Task- Traffic Count Comparison Across Platforms

[noah-ca]

Research Task- Traffic Count Comparison Across Platforms

Complete this issue to track work that is either stand alone or a smaller part of a bigger project.

Project Description

This project is designed to analyze and compare Traffic Volumes across three platforms: Caltrans Traffic Census, Replica Studies, and StreetLight Insight. By leveraging data visualization techniques, the project aims to provide insights into how these platforms perform relative to each other and identify any notable trends or patterns. The primary objectives of the project include:

• Comparison Across All Platforms: Analyzing the overall traffic volumes for Caltrans Traffic Census, Replica Studies, and StreetLight Insight to determine how the platforms compare to each other.
• Pairwise Comparisons: Conducting focused comparisons between Caltrans and Replica, Caltrans and StreetLight, as well as Replica and StreetLight to understand the dynamics between these pairs of platforms.

Features

• Data Collection: Gather traffic volume data from Caltrans, Replica, and StreetLight
• Data Cleaning and Preparation: Clean and preprocess the data to ensure accuracy and consistency.
• Data Visualization: Use Altair, a powerful data visualization library, to create interactive and informative charts.
• Comparative Analysis: Generate grouped bar charts to visualize the volume comparison across the three platforms and the specific pairwise comparisons.
• Insight Generation: Analyze the visualizations to draw meaningful conclusions and insights about the traffic volumes on each platform.

Technologies Used

• Python
• Pandas
• Altair
• Jupyter Notebooks

Question or Goal:
With this project, you will gain a clear understanding of how traffic volumes vary across Caltrans Traffic Census, Replica Studies, and StreetLight Insights, providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making and further analysis.

• Data Required: Internal public sources (Caltrans Traffic Census), Replica Studies, and StreetLight Insight. Using locations first identified in the Caltrans Traffic Census, Replica and StreetLight will be utilized to measure similar/same location(s) across platforms.

  • Currently have: Yes, but additional data is readily available
  • Need: Access to Replica and StreetLight. Caltrans Traffic Census data is publicly available.

• Tasks Required: Identify corridors & Caltrans traffic counting locations, then pull the data from both Replica and StreetLight

• Metrics: what, if any, specific calculations are you looking to find?

• Traffic Volumes for user identified locations

• Expected Outputs / Findings: what do you hope to have created when this is complete?

• A discussion piece to ensure reliability of the data. Caltrans data is seen as the primary dataset, if questions about Caltrans Traffic Census quality arises the Districts may need to be contacted. The data is collected by the Districts and compiled by Headquarters.