For our geospatial web application case study we have chosen
to examine a project called Cabspotting. It is a part of San Francisco
Exploratorium’s Invisible Dynamics initiative. Cabspotting traces San
Francisco’s taxi cabs as they travel throughout the Bay area. The collected
data is used to create live and constantly changing maps of city life.
This initiative is attempting to investigate alternate views
of the Bay area’s infrastructure. The maps created expose economic, social, and
cultural trends and relationships that are otherwise invisible. Artists and
researchers use Cabspotting data to create projects to reveal larger trends or
focus on specific events.
Cabspotting data can be used in many projects, examples
include:
- correlating cab rides with zip codes and average income to
show the relationship between socioeconomic status and use of cabs
- tracking individual rides and documenting it with photos,
drawings, sound recordings, or video
- examine points where cabs rarely or never visit and
investigate why this is
- examine places most frequently visited and investigate why
this is - showing all cab rides that pass in front of a specific place during one
day or time period
- using data to warp Bay area mapto show a ‘cab-centric’
view by distorting the landscape
- highlighting the most eccentric paths, such as very short,
long, or circuitous
Alyson C
Amy M
Chanel F
Hilary B
Kaileigh B
