How can you use traffic data to improve transportation access for parents with limited childcare options?

2 Why is traffic data important for parents?

Traffic data can help you identify the transportation needs and preferences of parents and their children. For example, you can use it to analyze travel patterns, evaluate accessibility, availability, and affordability of different transportation modes, assess safety, reliability, and comfort of transportation facilities and infrastructure, as well as monitor and measure the effects of transportation policies and programs on parents and their children.

4 How can you analyze and visualize traffic data?

Once you have collected and modeled traffic data, you can use various techniques and software to analyze and visualize the data. Doing so can help you explore, understand, identify, explain, communicate, and present the characteristics, trends, relationships, problems, opportunities, impacts, findings, insights, and recommendations of the data. Common techniques for analyzing and visualizing traffic data include descriptive statistics (e.g. mean, median, mode), inferential statistics (e.g. hypothesis testing), geospatial analysis (e.g. maps), data mining (e.g. clustering), and data visualization (e.g. bar charts).

5 How can you use traffic data to improve transportation access for parents?

Based on the analysis and visualization of traffic data, you can use it to inform and support your transportation planning and design decisions. You can identify gaps, barriers, or challenges that parents face in accessing transportation options or services, develop goals, objectives, or criteria that guide your planning or design process, evaluate alternatives, scenarios, or solutions that address your problem, select the best or optimal alternative to meet your criteria, and implement, monitor, or adjust the selected alternative based on the feedback or results. For example, you can use traffic data to design a bike lane network connecting parents and their children to schools, parks, or shops; plan a bus route or schedule accommodating travel needs and preferences; implement a carpool or ride-hailing program reducing congestion and emissions; monitor a road safety campaign improving awareness and behavior of drivers; and adjust a parking policy or pricing balancing the demand and supply of parking spaces.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?