I live in a very walkable city that has plenty of access to nearby public transportation. I am a cyclist who enjoys riding. I am also a car owner who takes advantage of my car to get from place to place. Analyzing the destinations, distances, and times of day when I’ve traveled over a 1-week period, which methods of travel do I tend to use most? And when choosing between my car vs. alternative methods of getting around, what guides my decisions?

How big is my world?

It was important to analyze the number of trips per day, as well as where I found myself going most. As a parent of two school-age children, a certain part of my day is dedicated to dropping off and pickup up at school. Other parts of the day are occupied by errands such as food shopping and appointments. Then there were leisure activities – going to restaurants, meeting friends. NYC is a huge city, and my home borough of Brooklyn the most populated. With so many places and opportunities, how far do I travel in a typical week? One of the strategies that New Yorkers take for granted is knowing the best, and most importantly, quickest way to get somewhere. Public transportation offers subway, bus, train, even boat. Depending upon the distance needed to travel, walking is always an option for those who are able. And the added privilege and luxury of car ownership adds yet further freedom. With all of these available to me, I took stock of how my week was broken down by methods of transportation. I was not surprised to learn very early on that walking was by far the most commonly used method.

What’s the breakdown?

Although I tracked every single one of my travels for an entire 10-day period, for this project I ultimately narrowed down my final results to a 7-day window. Seeing as how I don’t have a subway station right outside my stoop, anytime I wanted to take the train, a walk of 0.6 miles was a given for each day. Depending upon where I needed to go, the bike, subway, or car was used more frequently. Day by day, I broke out how many of each method of transportation was chosen by # of trips.

Okay, how far was I going?

Walking is great, provided a number of criteria made it a reasonable option. What was the weather like at the time? Was it light or dark out? Who was I travelling with? And most importantly, how far away was my destination? If I knew I had a destination that was 15 miles away, the likelihood of choosing to walk was lower the farther I had to go. On the other hand, living in Brooklyn, it’s practically out of the question to drive if your destination happens to be Manhattan. The chart below shows my furthest trips favoring the subway method whenever a range of 5-15 miles was called for, with automobile accounting for most trips between 1.4 and 3.9 miles. Walking and cycling only came into play that week for distances of typically 1 mile or less.

What did my days look like?

I thought it would be informative to count how many trips I was taking each day, and how long these trips were taking. Broken down into days of the week, I could see my busiest days were at the end of the week on Thursday & Friday, where I not only took the most trips, but also took the longest lasting trips. The weekend days were quieter, with less trips, but also relatively less walks by comparison.

Where Was I Going?

My dataset

This exploration of the quantified self was an exercise in awareness and self-reflection. Creating the dataset to document my day-to-day travels required attention, memory, and focus. The notation of when I left my starting point, how far I traveled and for how long, and then when I arrived at my destination commanded as much accuracy as was possible in the moment, when this was an option. To be honest, depending upon the company and circumstances (as well as ability to stay on task), there were many trips if not whole days where I had no choice but to record the best estimates I could provide many hours afterwards. I resorted to a system of unstructured data, for example, to safely and accurately track my car trips by using my phone to take snapshots of the odometer at times of departure and arrival, in order to calculate distance for that trip. (The image timestamps also helpfully took care of recording when I left and arrived.)