The University of Sydney has made several significant changes to its infrastructure over the past few years (new buildings, new services, etc.). The intention has been to provide better infrastructure, services and facilities that suit the needs of staff and students while respecting the interests of the local community. The university wants to know how these improvements have changed how staff and students use and move around the university campus. You have been tasked with analysing the change (from 2016 to 2018) in staff, student and visitor movements, investigating other potential improvements and making recommendations to the university for what it should do next.
Since this is a large task, you have been asked to focus on one of the following issues:
• Transport
• Safety and security
• Marketing opportunities
• Retail and food
• Recreation and leisure facilities
• Study facilities
Since the university recognises the importance of geography, you have been provided with a number of spatial datasets to use for your analysis. The datasets have been collected by a number of organisations using a variety of different methods. For this reason, the datasets may contain errors or contradict each other. The same applies to the same type of data collected over several years. The following datasets have been provided:
a) Copies of the wifi access logs for 24 hours in 2016 and for another 24 hours in 2018. These show every time a person connects a device to the university’s wifi network. This includes laptops, smartphones, tablets, raspberry pi and any other device which has a wifi radio. For privacy reasons the data has been anonymised by changing the user ids but it can be assumed that all data (from the same year) with the same user id is collected from the same person.
b) Pedestrian traffic counts
c) Vehicle traffic counts
d) Locations of university buildings
e) Locations of university amenities
f) Opal data for all modes around The University of Sydney (2016 and 2018)
You may also use any other data you have available to you including the data provided to you and any data you find on the internet. You must include a section in your report listing the sources of data.
This problem involves several tasks. Note, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer here, and it is likely you will come up with different solutions to other students. Your performance will be judged based on your correct choice and application of GIS techniques, the logic of your solution and ultimately the extent to which you can make a persuasive argument for your recommendations.
Task 1: Assessment of current situation (2018)
➢ Using appropriate GIS procedures identify the movement patterns (where they go, how many buildings each person goes to, etc.), and how this varies by time of day.
➢ Create one map using R – it is up to you what you show on this map.
➢ Conduct any other analysis necessary to understand the current situation for your specific focus (i.e. retail and food, study facilities, etc.)
Task 2: Assessment of change in movements (relative to 2016)
➢ Take the analysis conducted in task 1 and analyse the change from 2016
➢ Identify the major differences between 2016 and 2018
➢ Determine how the changes in the university differ from changes in the area around the university
Task 3: Final Recommendations
➢ Based on Tasks 1 and 2, identify one option for further improvements to the university’s facilities or services.
➢ Analyse the impact of your proposed improvement using the data provided
➢ Based on your analysis of your identified option and tasks 1 and 2, provide some final recommendations to the university. Your recommendations must be based on the results of your analysis.
Your report must be a maximum of six pages including (one) title page containing a title, course code, date and student number; up to five pages including any maps, tables, references or appendices. If you can cover everything you need to in fewer pages you may do so – the page limit is a maximum, not a target.
It must contain at least the following but how you organise the report is up to you:
• The results of tasks 1, 2 and 3
• One map created using R
• At least two other maps that can be done in R, ArcGIS or QGIS. You may include additional maps if you wish.
• A section listing all the datasets you used and, if they were not provided to you as part of data, where you got them from. In the same section you should also explain any assumptions you have made about the data. A bulleted list is sufficient for this section.
