Datacom 2018: Analyzing Metro Transit Data

Victor Manzanilla — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 23:26:53 +0000

As the Twin Cities’ primary public transit service, Metro Transit strives to provide an efficient, accessible, and inclusive network of public transportation for its 1.5 million weekly rides. The institution is an integral part of the urban fabric, and seeks to “engage the community in [its] decision making…provide well crafted communication and offer opportunities for public involvement” (). Recently, Metro Transit needed help investigating ridership data to understand trends in local transit use and intelligently improve its system to meet customer needs.

Enter the University of St. Thomas Sustainable Communities Partnership (SCP) program. As a member of the �鶹��Ƶ, their unique program was a perfect match to meet Metro Transit’s needs. Students have imagined improvements to a service they rely on while gaining practical skills, and Metro Transit has learned from an indispensable ridership demographic. For example, through SCP, Metro Transit partnered with the Department of Economics to analyze two years of passenger data through their annual DataCom competition.

Using ridership data provided by Metro Transit, students analyzed “two years (~73 million observations) of automatic passenger counts by route, stop, and time-of-day; ten years (~350,000 observations) of daily ridership by route; and geographic identifiers and site descriptions for Metro Transit stops.” Their research was conducted as part of DataCom 2018, an annual data analysis competition sponsored by the Department of Economics which asks students to “analyze real-world data to answer their own research questions” (). The rigorous competition was an ideal setting for the task at hand.

Students asked pressing questions and provided original research. They used GIS and regional bus data to determine ideal park-and-ride placement, examined the correlation between minimum wage increases and increased transit ridership, recommended new bus shelter locations based on rider data and route frequency, and developed formulas to understand and predict route lateness. Their deliverables ranged across relevant topics and disciplines to benefit Metro Transit. While the conference format differed from the usual �鶹��Ƶ model, DataCom complemented ongoing projects in SCP courses and encouraged an exchange of resources and ideas between students and Metro Transit.

Completed student data analysis projects generated novel ideas for more efficient, inclusive, and cost-effective public transportation. By inviting students’ participation in data analysis, Metro Transit and SCP engaged key issues impacting future riders, city planners, and transit workers.

Read the full story of the partnership.

California State University, Monterey Bay

Ada Inman — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 23:31:25 +0000

Sustainable City Year Program

Website |

Our program was created when I was informed of a “Just Start” conference at the University of Oregon back in 2014. My Provost agreed to fund one of my students and me to attend. Shortly after the conference began, my student and I looked at each other and said “We have to do this at CSUMB!” For context, CSUMB is a young (founded in 1994) and very service-oriented campus. All of our students must take classes in service learning and that was a core element from the original founding of our campus. The concept described at this pre �鶹��Ƶ conference (since it wasn’t called �鶹��Ƶ just yet) seemed to fit beautifully within our university ethos. It became his senior capstone project to start our program the following year, with my assistance. He graduated and I continue to manage our growing program, which has been running since 2015, when we had our first partner, the City of Salinas. Our current program focus is to work with the Transportation Agency for Monterey County, TAMC, (our current partner) on encouraging Safe Routes to School within the region. This initiative encourages more community walking and biking and the encouragement of active transportation among our youth. We have a contract with TAMC through 2026. Our program is hoping to enhance livability, community and individual health, and reduced regional carbon footprint though student and class efforts.

The mission of our program is to engage campus faculty, staff and students to engage with regional municipalities to help them work on projects of their choosing that will enhance their sustainability, whether it be environmental sustainability, human health and well being, equity and/or social justice. The projects that our municipal partners choose are ones that they either could not do without the support of university classes, or they are ones that greatly benefit from CSUMB student and faculty engagement.

Fun Facts about CSUMB’s SCYP Program

Our program has forged multiple connections for our students with some of our partner agencies, some of which we know about, others of which just happen and we discover later! Some of our students have also won awards for their work. For instance, students in the College of Business came up with a design to help house migrant farm workers in Salinas on land converting to organic farming. For their efforts they won an innovation award at a regional Entrepreneurial event. Another set of students in Psychology won a poster award and advanced to present as finalists within the entire CSU system. Another interesting story is of one grad student who took a GIS course that was a part of SCYP. She later taught the course which ran as a SCYP course. Through this, she became known the City of Seaside, our partner at the time, and was hired by them to start their GIS team. She then became one of our main contacts with the city. So, she served as SCYP student, instructor, and, eventually city contact! She also received “Outstanding Graduate Student” when she graduated in 2019 and was the first person to receive that award at CSUMB.

Year Program Established | 2015
Country | US
Federal Region of Program | 9

Public or Private Institution | Public
Number of students at institution | 7,000

Highlight Articles/Videos

City Partners

2015 – 2017 | City of Salinas • Population: 150,000
2017 – 2019 | City of Seaside • Population: 34,312
2019 – 2020 | City of San Juan Bautista • Population: 1,976
2020 – 2021 | City of Pacific Grove • Population: 15,698 (2017)
2021 – 2026| Transportation Agency for Monterey County (TAMC)

Contact Info

Daniel M. Fernandez
Professor and SCYP Coordinator
Department of Applied Environmental Science
CSUMB
(831) 582-3786
dfernandez@csumb.edu

Statistics – �鶹��Ƶ