Team Members:

Student Team:

Tools Used:

Approximately how many hours were spent working on this submission in total?

May we post your submission in the Visual Analytics Benchmark Repository after VAST Challenge 2017 is complete?

Video

Questions

1 - “Patterns of Life” analyses depend on recognizing repeating patterns of activities by individuals or groups. Describe up to six daily patterns of life by vehicles traveling through and within the park. Characterize the patterns by describing the kinds of vehicles participating, their spatial activities (where do they go?), their temporal activities (when does the pattern happen?), and provide a hypothesis of what the pattern represents (for example, if I drove to a coffee house every morning, but did not stay for long, you might hypothesize I’m getting coffee “to-go”). Please limit your answer to six images and 500 words.

    Figure 1.1
    Figure 1.1 - Distribution of Vehicle Types throughout the preserve.
    Figure 1.2
    Figure 1.2 - Peak versus Off-Peak hours of visitation at the preserve.
    Figure 1.3
    Figure 1.3 - Peak versus Off-Peak hours of Rangers at the preserve.
    Figure 1.4
    Figure 1.4 - Distribution of Day Campers who stay at a campsite for 20s or less.
    Figure 1.5
    Figure 1.5 - Map with distribution of Records by Gate, with most popular pattern and popular construction areas labeled.
    Figure 1.6
    Figure 1.6 - Distribution of Camper Types over Hours of Arrival and Exit of Campsites.
  1. Visitors are most frequently active in the park between 6AM and 5PM, seeing the most diverse car types (F1.1) as well as frequent records (F1.2). We can hypothesize that if a vehicle enters the park between 5am and 5pm, they are more likely to be a visitor, while if they arrive between 6pm and 4am, they are passing through the park.
  2. The most popular series of gates or path consists of general gate 1, ranger stops 0 and 2, and general gate 1 (F1.5). This road connects the east and west sides of the park. We hypothesize that this road sees the most traffic because it is the only route between the East and West sides of the park that isn't under construction.
  3. Rangers are most active within the preserve from 9am to 6pm, relatively active from 6-7am and 7-8pm, but are sparsely active between 9pm-6am. Less than 5% of rangers appear between 12am-5am, with 0 rangers showing up between 4-5am (F1.3). 85% of rangers' shifts last for less than 5 hours, with the most common shift length being 3 hours, occurring most frequently from 3-5pm. The most frequented ranger-stops in descending order include 6,3, and 5, while campsites 0-6 get visited by less than 5% of all rangers. If a ranger is working between 6am and 10pm and stops at a campsite, we hypothesize they are patrolling the preserve. If they do not stop at a campsite but stop at a ranger-stop or are seen working after hours (11pm-5am), we hypothesize they are doing service work. If they do not stop at a campsite, but they pass through campsite 8, we hypothesize they are doing work at ranger-stop3 (F1.6). These patterns lead us to believe there are two classifications of rangers: patrolling, and service workers.
  4. Passing Through Vehicles: Vehicles are considered to be passing through the park if they do not stop at any gates. They can be broken down into two types: passenger and commercial vehicles. Vehicles of types 1,2, and 3 who pass through the park are assumed to be passenger vehicles commuting and taking a shortcut through the preserve. There are also busses that pass through the preserve and do not make any stops within the preserve, who are assumed to have bus routes that pass through the preserve, but don't have bus stops. There are also construction type vehicles who pass through the park. Vehicles passing through the park make up most of the observations in the data (F1.1).
  5. Day Campers: Visitors who enter and exit the preserve within the same calendar day and visit a campsite are considered to be day campers. Day Campers consist of vehicles of types 1,2 and 3. They spend on average, less than two hours at a campsite. It is found that almost 90% of day campers do not stay at a campsite for more than one minute (F1.4).

2 - Patterns of Life analyses may also depend on understanding what patterns appear over longer periods of time (in this case, over multiple days). Describe up to six patterns of life that occur over multiple days (including across the entire data set) by vehicles traveling through and within the park. Characterize the patterns by describing the kinds of vehicles participating, their spatial activities (where do they go?), their temporal activities (when does the pattern happen?), and provide a hypothesis of what the pattern represents (for example, many vehicles showing up at the same location each Saturday at the same time may suggest some activity occurring there each Saturday). Please limit your answer to six images and 500 words.

    Figure 2.1
    Figure 2.1 - Ranger shift lengths and hours by Ranger Type
    Figure 2.2
    Figure 2.2 - Seasonal Traffic Heatmap
    Figure 2.3
    Figure 2.3 - Overnight Campers Stays by Days of Arrival and Departure
    Figure 2.4
    Figure 2.4 - Number of busses by Day visiting the Preserve
    Figure 2.5
    Figure 2.5 - Campsite Popularity
    Figure 2.5
    Figure 2.6 - Path of Construction Vehicles crossing into Construction Areas.
  1. Seasonal Traffic: Visitation to the preservation flourishes during the summer months with peak number of visits occurring most frequently in the month of July. Hypothesis: We can assume wildlife in the preservation is most abundant throughout the summer months which spawns large amounts of visitation.
  2. Construction Vehicles/Areas (F1.5): There are a series of type four vehicles that visit the park between 2am-4am on Tuesdays and Thursdays every few weeks throughout the data. The vehicles pass through the construction zones at ranger stops 6 and 3. We hypothesize they are dropping off equipment for fixes to these zones for the service workers during downtime in the park.
  3. Extended Campers: The majority of overnight campers stay four nights or less in the preservation, while the most typical duration for an overnight camper is only one night. We can assume that most campers frequent the preservation on the weekends as per the average duration of overnight campers. There are some weekend campers who keep their entry ticket (against the rules) and return for camping on multiple weekends. The most popular days for arrival to campsites are Friday, Saturday, Sunday and the most popular for departure from campsites are Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Campsite 1 is the least popular campsite among extended campers, with only 40 unique visitors total.
  4. Seasonal Rangers - Daily park ranger shifts typically average between one and four hours, while overnight shifts usually last from seven to ten hours. The preservation does not have 24/7 coverage, however, there are approximately x rangers active on a daily basis and y on a nightly basis. Hypothesis: It is likely that there may be tourist actions going on overnight that may disturb wildlife preservation, especially during hours of limited ranger supervision.
  5. Bus Routes - On average, busses are seen travelling through the preservation most frequently throughout the summer months (July through September) with peak numbers of daily visits occurring sporadically between May and October. Hypothesis: We can assume there are special events that attract tourists to the preservation throughout the year as detailed by the various fluctuations of bus visits by day of the month.
  6. Campsite Popularity - As you can see, the durations as well as the frequencies of visitors increase during the warmer months. Camping 1 has the shortest durations. It is most likely used for day camping, cycling, hiking.

3 - Unusual patterns may be patterns of activity that changes from an established pattern, or are just difficult to explain from what you know of a situation. Describe up to six unusual patterns (either single day or multiple days) and highlight why you find them unusual. Please limit your answer to six images and 500 words.

    Figure 3.1
    Figure 3.1 - Anomaly of Visitors meeting with Ranger, after trespassing and skipping gate.
    Figure 3.2
    Figure 3.2 - Two cars that follow each other and stop between general gates.
    Figure 3.3
    Figure 3.3 - Seasonal Camper.
    Figure 3.4
    Figure 3.4 - Returning Campers.
    Figure 3.5
    Figure 3.5 - Anomalous Visitors.
  1. Sequence of visitors entering Entrance 1, bypassing unauthorized Gate 2 to get to Ranger Stop 1; visitors assumed to have strayed off the main road. Opposite route is taken upon exit. Park Ranger is seen attending this rendezvous at Ranger Stop 1. (F3.1)
  2. Lost/forgetful people: July 20th two type one vehicles follow each other and turn around at gates within seconds of each other. Hypothesis: two cars who were following each other got lost/turned around on their way through the park. Forgetful weekend camper Hypothesis: Weekend camper on their way out of the preserve realizes they forgot something and comes back to the campsite, only to realize they forgot something else and returns to get it as well, before finally leaving the preserve. (F3.2)
  3. One particular visitor arrives in 2015 and stays in the preservation for almost a year, randomly rotating from campsite to campsite. Hypothesis: This is possibly a conservationist who is surveying the preservation year around.(F3.3)
  4. There are eleven total cases of visitors who do not surrender their RF tags upon exiting which is against preservation protocol.(F3.4)
  5. A few visitors enter the park the night before and don't leave, but reappear the next day at an entrance. We are to assume that these individuals improperly exited the preservation since their RF tags were not seen at any of the entry gates. (F3.5)

4 - What are the top 3 patterns you discovered that you suspect could be most impactful to bird life in the nature preserve? (Short text answer)

  • Most vehicles entering and exiting the park are passing through. We see that a majority of the visitors to the park are either passing through, or day campers who only stay at a campsite for a minute or less. These visitors are not utilizing the park, while simultaneously increasing through traffic. There also is room for skepticism and conspiracies about why some campers are staying less than a minute at a campsite. Are the qualities of the campsites poor? Are they Dropping visitors off? Or are they dropping something off to damage the land?
  • Series of early morning visits (2 to 4 AM) by type 4 vehicles on Tuesdays and Thursdays, where drivers travelled through unauthorized private gates in the absence of park rangers. Rangers doing construction on road to the south of the park that connects east to west side of park. Areas of construction: bottom path from east to west side path from entrance 0 to campsite 0 Since there is a ranger stop between gates 5 and 6, we can assume there is active construction going on there. Since there is no ranger stop between gates 0 and 1, we can assume that it is closed, but there is not active construction happening there. We come to this from the assumptions made in the data description file: Preserve ranger vehicles have tags that allow them to pass through \[private] gates to inspect or perform work on the roadway [Ranger-stops] represent working areas for the Rangers, so you will often see \[them] at the end of a road managed by a gate. Increased traffic on road between general gate 1 and general gate 2. There are only two roads that connect the east side of the preserve with the west side: one to the north, and one to the south. The road to the south is surrounded by private gates. We hypothesize that this road was once open to the public, but has since been under construction. It is the only road with a ranger stop surrounded by two private access gates. Due to the closing of this road for construction, there is an increase of traffic to the northern route. We assume that the large clearing in the middle of the park is where most of the wildlife is. With more traffic being forced through the northern path, this could disrupt the nesting patterns of the birds. To support this hypothesis, we return to the previous pattern: type 4 vehicles driving through private gates in the early mornings. These vehicles, which are trucks with 4+ axles, could be categorized as a construction type vehicle. They are seen driving on the road encompassing ranger-stop 6. We also see an increase in ranger activity on this road on the Wednesday and Friday following the visitation of the type 4 vehicles. Since this construction bottlenecks all of the traffic to one route, it naturally cuts the park into an east and west side. On the west side of the park, we find that campsite 0 sees the least amount of visitors. You'll also happen to notice that it is right next to a construction site. We believe that it is safe to assume that the attendance at campsite 0 is so low, is due to the fact that it is harder to get to. If the area of construction was open, it would be easily accessible by Entrance 0. Currently, you have to drive past 3 different campsites before you even get to campsite 0. Most trafficked area by all persons (rangers and not) in the park, is the area of general-gate1/ranger-stop0/ranger-stop2/general-gate2, which is right by a large un-marked area that seems to separate the park into a left and right side. Is this where the wildlife is? Is the traffic around this path disrupting their natural nesting habits?
  • As mentioned above, rangers aren't as active outside of the normal peak hours of the park (patrolling officers, especially). Even with this lack of supervision, we still see quite a few visitors coming to the park during these hours. This lack of supervision leaves more room for opportunity to abuse the preserve. Late night visitors can be coming and damaging the environment the birds rely on.