Time lapsed Traffic Data Illuminates US Cities 23

Topic Tag | Engineering

The Art of The Commute: Time-lapsed Traffic Data Illuminates US Cities [Part 2/3]

Last week, we took a look at the traffic patterns of four US cities through our new series of data visualizations. This week we are bringing you the videos for four more cities: Denver, Houston, Miami, and New York. Later this week we'll be sharing Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Represented in each video is the start and end point of each Drivemode journey taken in the respective city from January 2017 through May 2018, connected by an arc. The brightness of the arc shows how long it takes to drive one mile; the brighter the arc, the slower the traffic moved for that trip.

In a time-lapse style, each video shows one normalized hour-by-hour progression from midnight to midnight, mapping hundreds of thousands of miles driven during each of those hour windows. Drivers coming in and out of city limits are included in the mapping, as long as 70% of their trip was within the metro area.

As the hours progress, the busiest aggregated morning and evening times are revealed by the increasing density of arcs; there we can pinpoint the 20-minute time periods in which each metro experienced peak traffic.

DENVER


HOUSTON


MIAMI


NEW YORK


“Like fireworks lighting up a night sky, this artful view of metropolitan driving trends reminds us that there is more to our travels than just miles logged and minutes clocked,” said Yo Koga, CEO and founder of Drivemode. “There is unique beauty in how communties move through space and time, and we are delighted that Drivemode data can illuminate that beauty.”

“These images also show the ebbs and flows of traffic around the clock, which allow us to pinpoint the exact times with the most and least traffic on area roadways. Motorists with flexibility in their schedules can use that information to hit the roads when they’ll encounter fewer fellow drivers, undoubtedly saving themselves the headaches that come with enduring excruciating traffic.”