The Question:
Bike theft feels way more common when the weather is nice. I want to see if that’s true. I’ll review the Ottawa Police bike theft open data to check whether thefts increase in spring/summer, and decrease in fall/winter, and if certain neighbourhoods experience more thefts than others.
Data Resource Link:
Bike Theft — Ottawa Police Community Safety Data Portal (Open Data) ArcGIS
(Portal home for context: Ottawa Police Community Safety Data Portal) Ottawa Police Data Portal
Data Fix Log
Sorted by date: Easier to read from oldest to newest.
Fixed date format (MM/DD/YYYY): Sorting and filters work properly.
Ward/Sector to numbers: Lets me group and filter without errors.
Cleaned place names: Trimmed spaces and used the same capitalization so one location isn’t split into many.
Removed duplicates: Dropped rows with the same case ID and date, so nothing is counted twice.
Added a Season column: From the date: Winter (Dec–Feb), Spring (Mar–May), Summer (Jun–Aug), Fall (Sep–Nov). Makes comparisons quick.
Kept “geomasked” map points: The dataset shifts locations for privacy. I left them as provided, so maps are approximate.
What’s Next?
I’ll total thefts by season and make a simple bar chart to see if summer really spikes. Then I’ll rank neighbourhoods/wards by count and write a short paragraph on what the pattern looks like for Ottawa.
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