I learned so many things at this past weekend’s Mobility Hack Day, which was held at Mobility Lab, a unique organization in our region and nation.
“Mobility” refers to transportation, rather than “mobile technology,” although the two are commingled in this world. I have been following all of the amazing analysis and visualizations of Capital Bikeshare, the nation’s largest (and most awesome) bike sharing service, which has made its data available for download. This is just one example from community colleague MV Jantzen.
But what I learned at Hack Day was a bit of a revelation. I didn’t realize that walking could be measured (since I assumed, unlike a bike, you don’t check out your feet at a walk station).
Well it turns out that you can, via specially designed meters that have different characteristics suitable for measuring walking indoors or outdoors. It seems like there’s as much science behind these as there is for many medical tests we order (such sensitivity/specificity, for example).
Why Arlington?
Why, do you ask, does Arlington, Virgina have a nation-leading organization like Mobility Lab? Here’s a clue (from Wikipedia):
With a land area of 26 square miles, Arlington is the geographically smallest self-governing county in the United States and has no other incorporated towns within its borders. Given these unique characteristics, for statistical purposes, the county is included as a municipality within the Washington Metropolitan Area by the United States Census Bureau. As of 2012, Arlington County had a population of 220,565 residents. It would be the fourth-largest city in the state if it were incorporated as such.
Think about the management of growth that this must require, and necessity is the mother of innovation.
Walking and Mondays, my quick little data hack
Most people who attend Mobility Lab’s regular Hack Days walk away with a heightened knowledge of how to turn ugly data into handsome graphics.
My little hack was pretty simple. I just downloaded pedestrian counts from three points in Arlington’s trail system in order to create a visualization of what Mondays looked like relative to the rest of the week. This analysis is important, because there’s behavioral science to show that Mondays have special significance in changing behavior and it may be more effective to start a change on Monday, and continue that change on a Monday, for lasting effect. The Monday Campaigns have highlighted this and leveraged it to success in multiple venues and campaigns. Also check out The Science behind the Monday Campaigns.
My hack above has significant methodologic problems, most notably that it doesn’t take the weather into account.
Let’s assume for a second, though, that it’s correct. If it is, it may show a picture of people walking on trails mostly on weekends with a drop-off during the work week. Imagine that you are an employer in the area, and could start a Monday campaign, by encouraging your employees to conduct walking meetings on Mondays or walking to work on Mondays.
First, you could use this data to see impact – since it counts down to the pedestrian.
Second, you could report this data back and use it to see a smoothing of walking throughout the week. In other words, Monday could be the “The Day All Health Breaks Loose” and, over time, there would be more weekday walking.
And I’m still impressed that walking can actually be counted without expensive pedometers or app installations. (Have I mentioned that already a few times at my own blog?)
I guess point #3 is that more employers could install pedestrian counters to support walking initiatives across all their locations.
And just as I joke that I’d like to have a functional MRI to discover the secrets that other industries use to promote unhealthy behavior, I’d like to have one, or 600 of these sensors to track walking where people live, work, learn, and play.
Thanks again, Mobility Lab, for opening your doors to all. Special thanks to Sridevi Beidha from Redmon Group, who with a single utterance of a URL, made rainbows come into the room. Transportation and Health are really collaborating now.
This article is excerpted from TedEytan.com, where it was originally published.