This project was created in collaboration with David King, Tom McKeogh and Eliza Montgomery.

This top animation, called “Taxi!” is an analytical model that maps the trip data for 10,000 taxi rides over the course of 24 hours. Geographic location data for the origin and destination of each ride is combined with waypoint data collected from the Google Maps API in order to generate a geographically accurate representation of the trip. We used data from taxi rides originating or ending in the neighborhoods of Lincoln center or Bryant Park. The visualization recreates a ‘breathing’ map of Manhattan based on the migration of vehicles across the city over a period of 24 hours, displaying periods of intensity, density and decreased activity.

The second animation, drawn from the work of David King at Columbia University and Jonathan Peters at the College of Staten Island, visualizes the imbalance between origins and destinations of taxi rides in New York City. By depicting these imbalances as mounatins and valleys, and the number of active taxis by the brightness of the colors, the daily flows of the city become aparent, as well as the places and moments where the imbalances are most pronounced.

Built with Processing.