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I do recognize I have large gaps of data missing. This was written as a hypothesis on travel and randomness. To support kids activities in a southern US city,

I do recognize I have large gaps of data missing. This was written as a hypothesis on travel and randomness. To support kids activities in a southern US city, random time/source/destination of drivers is removed. Most people have to drive to the same location at the same time to send their kids to school or other activities. Thus, the event yesterday added more randomness to the travel patterns by removing the kids activities. I don't have real-time flow of all data, thus I could be completely wrong. All I have for traffic data is a few Google traffic maps.

mikeash 10y ago
The data is so sparse that we have no idea if the kids were indeed the critical factor, or if they were completely irrelevant and the change was due to something else entirely. It doesn't really read as a hypothesis with statements like "People without kids were largely unaffected." On a somewhat different note, it may not be the same there, but around here (Fairfax County, near DC), school opening times are staggered fairly substantially in order to make better use of the bus fleet. Schools here start anywhere from 7:10AM to 9:20AM. This will also spread out car traffic, not that the school district does that intentionally.
conductr 10y ago
You're not just missing data, you need some ceteris paribus and when severe weather events happens you are very far from it. Randomness does not allow you to validate the conclusion you want or that makes most sense to you. I live in a southern city that occasionally gets ice, vast majority of people take that opportunity to just stay home. Nobody in the south can drive in ice. When that happens. Traffic is light whether school is in session or not. Therefore, I say kids have zero impact on traffic. Ha!