RESEARCH QUESTIONS

We distinguish two types of research questions:
(1) statistical research questions, based on personal or activity related (statistical) information leading to statistical or visual outcomes and
(2) questions based on spatial/temporal information: visual analytics of the real activity patterns resulting in visual and statistical outcomes.
We expect that those two are related, but provide a different angle of approaching the data.
 
As Urban Designers we’re interested in the
(a) influence of urban aspects (ie the context) on movement,
(b) the influence of movement on the context and
(c) the relation between background/context data and actual spatial patterns.
 
All research questions can be approached from different scales:
(1) trip : individual (annotated) trip,
(2) person (all individual trips),
(3) building (all participants in a specific building),
(4) cluster of buildings (all participants in specific cluster) and
(5) all participants.

Do high-rise residential buildings contribute to active city life? What are the criteria for active city life? Comparison with ground-oriented housing? How can we activate people living in the city centre to use the offered facilities (more) and extent soft modes like walking and biking?
What conditions would improve living in high-rise residential towers? How about accessibility, activities (landuse and the position in the urban tissue), design of the public domain. Which conditions are essential/required? Which conditions are satisfiers? Which conditions are dissatisfiers?
How can we improve the city centre of Rotterdam? What can we conclude from the collected data using DATA MINING and VISUAL ANALYTICS? What would be the advice to (a) keep and/or (b) change in programme (activities/landuse) and in the public domain (traffic/transport system, landuse)…
How can we make city centres vital? How do we create good housing conditions in city centres? – a broad question, but seen from the point of this data challenge.
Can we use the spatio-temporal data to develop agents? Can we create a model with agents based on the data set(s).

How can we improve data processing?  - speed, accuracy, consistency?
What information do we need to collect to annotate trips? – What can be done automatically? What annotations are useful? Which annotations do we need more information for: mode of transportation, stops(s), and destinations…
What procedures need to be followed? - Which tools can be developed to improve consequent results?

STATISTICS resulting into patterns
Can the characteristics of a trip length, duration, and number of stops of a trip be determined unanimously? Can we distinguishdifferent speeds per segment (street, square)?
What is therelation between trip length (actual route) and radius (direct distance from start to end)? –calculate the distance/radius for all activities starting from home and separated per cluster of activities: work/office, shopping/leisure/culture, recreation/sports, drinking/dining?
How valid is the data?  What background information/attributes can be used for spatial statistics? –age, group type, household type, income, type of housing, etc – do theseattributes correlate to specific spatial patterns?
Do specificbackground attributes result in specific patterns? Is there a correlation between specific attributes and spatial patterns?
SPATIAL PATTERNS / VISUAL ANALYTICS
How is a trip (or series of trips) related to the context? Can the correlation between actual behavior and context attributes be determined?
Can similarspatial patterns be recognized/isolated and correlated common background orcontextual attributes? –do specific personal or trip attributesrelate to specific spatial patterns? What is similarity –time, duration, speed, sequence, pattern…?
Can we determine differences or similarities in spatial patterns between (1) individual trips, (2) people living in the same building, (3) different buildings, (4) different clusters?
What is the influence of the address of a building (position in the city, urban tissue) on (a) destinations, (b) duration/time of the trip, (c) distance of travel and (d) mode of transportation?
Ad (a): where are people focused on for (1) work, (2) shopping/leisure/culture, (3) recreation/sports  and (4) drinking and dining?
Ad (b): are there similarities/differences in time?
Ad (c): are there similarities/differences in distance?
Ad (d): are there similarities/differences in mode of transportation?
How can visualization contribute to new insights? e.g. static versus dynamic, 2D versus 3D,  flows versus dots, direction versus lines…? How to develop new visualization techniques offering improved access to the spatio-temporal data? How to develop new visualization techniques offering improved access to background information and attributes?
Can the assumptions from the questionnaires be proved with the spatio-temporal data?
Does the data confirm the outcomes of the questionnaires? (see results).