Over a year ago I moved from Canada back to New Zealand. My wife didn't want to directly live in Wellington due to the weather being sub-par, so we moved up the coast to a small town called Raumati. Unfortunately for me there isn't a lot of data work in Raumati, so I commute into Wellington 3 days a week to help out my clients. On the weekend you can travel this stretch of road in around 40-50 minutes, in 2015 during peak traffic I was averaging 60-70 minutes, 2016 struck and some days I'm up to 120 minutes. Now there have a been a lot of road works on my journey that started in 2016 and it's easy to blame the NZ traffic authority, but I have another hypothesis (that isn't ground breaking) but I think it's due to the petrol prices being so low. The New Zealand government is pretty open with its data, so I started to collect traffic stats on State highway 1 (SH1) and historical petrol prices to see if there is a co-relation between the two. So to stop my babbling, I will share my findings: The data you're looking covers 2012 through to 2015 (4 years). NZTA hasn't provided data for 2016 yet. The Y Axis represents the cost of gas & X covers the amount of vehicles. NZTA provided data based on many points on SH1, I used the collection from Pukerua bay as that's pretty close to my place. Using the same data (2012-2015), you can see a much stronger co-relation between gas prices and number of vehicles on the road (graph below). Since I don't have vehicle data for 2016, I can only make assumptions on the volumes, you can see that we are still quite a few cents down from December 2015. So what drives people to drop public transport and take the petrol powered horse and carriage? I drive a honda fit to work (don't laugh) and it averages around 14km per litre (which is pretty good). My total costs for driving into work 5 days a week is:
I will let you come to your on conclusions on the analysis, I feel like my original hypothesis is correct and more people are driving in based on the price of fuel. Personally I value time more than money and losing 2 hours a day isn't worth it which is causing me to get pretty close to getting that train pass. Side note: It's also valid to point out the December has the highest traffic numbers of any month for every year (christmas and holidays etc). If you're hell bent on driving into work, you might want to pray that gas prices go back up.. otherwise suck it up. Data Sources: Train costs Vehicle Data Petrol Data
7 Comments
Suhel
2/22/2016 11:47:35 pm
Nice work. I think your link for the traffic data is the same as the petrol data. :)
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Ed
3/6/2016 01:05:36 pm
Hey Suhel,
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Gordon
2/24/2016 01:24:51 pm
Dude,
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Ed
3/6/2016 01:06:13 pm
There are 100 places I would love to move to in NZ, but alas.. Wellington is where the work is
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Joe
3/14/2016 02:30:29 pm
Just ride a motorbike. That would solve many issues right there!
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suhel
3/14/2016 06:48:39 pm
Yes, totally agree with that.
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1/29/2024 04:48:27 am
I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the seamless blend of personal experiences and practical advice in your travel blog. It's a winning combination that not only informs but also resonates on a deeper level with your audience. Your authenticity is a rare and valuable quality in the world of travel blogging.
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AuthorNew Zealand big data nerd, facial hair sculptor and classic car fanatic. Owner of needles.io, freelance big data consultant, ex Activision. Archives
April 2016
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