SharpestMinds Capstone Project¶

Data Analysis of Lyft’s Bay Wheels in San Francisco¶


This is my capstone deliverable for my SharpestMinds data fellowship, which consists of a multi-faceted and in-depth data analysis of Lyft’s Bay Wheels bikesharing dataset from 2019 to 2021 in the city of San Francisco.


Note

This project is currently in production. Much of the data wrangling and analytical work was completed over the course of 2020, and paused for most of 2021 as I was finishing my Master’s thesis. I will be migrating what I have already created, and updating new content, progressively.

Overview¶

Bay Wheels, Lyft’s bikesharing service for the San Francisco Bay Area, has gone through several upheavals over the last few years, including rebranding from Ford Go-Bikes and the botched launch of its e-bike fleet in 2019, the effect of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic on typical commuter ridership trends, and public discontent due to changes in its pricing plans. Yet Bay Wheels continues to expand its coverage throughout San Francisco’s hilly landscape, unhindered by the city’s pleasant Mediterranean climate. In this project, I am analyzing temporal, spatial, customer (ridership), and revenue trends; by comprehensively observing the dataset, I aim to develop a business case to improve Lyft’s day-to-day operations.

Learning objectives¶

My personal learning objectives for this project are:

  • To refine and iterate upon my ETL process for big data;

  • To familiarize myself with data engineering tools and apps, such as PySpark and Databricks;

  • To apply Machine methods for predictive analysis,and understand how to evaluate them;

  • To make use of effective data visualizations to reveal trends from a multidimensional dataset.

Find the project on GitHub¶

Hi, I’m Hadrien Picq¶

I hold a BA in Geography with a minor in Geospatial Information & Technology from UC Berkeley, and a Master of Environment in Environmental Assessment from Concordia University. I began my reconversion towards data science in 2018, motivated by the imperative to enhance my GIS skillset using programmatic methods for data analytical processes. I joined SharpestMinds in 2020 under the mentorship of Mikhail Sidyakov to further expand my base knowledge of data science, and to be prepared for the competitive STEM job market.

Interests of mine include the environmental impact of air pollution (my Master’s revolved around community-participation in monitoring fine particle pollution, and how that affects regulatory planning and policy), and geospatial representations of data. I also want to get into Raspberry-Pi’s and computer hardware (especially for environmental monitoring!).