See below for visualization from Tableau:
See below for visualization from Tableau:
For first portion of this lab, we manually cleaned the data. CSV file linked here. Screenshot below from my manual cleaning work:
Second portion of Population Data screenshots below:
For this first project, I put myself into the shoes of a DSNY (Department of Sanitation NY) data analyst. I would like to examine the 311 calls that DSNY handles and see if there are any specific types of complaints that need to be addressed, more so than others. In an initial filtering of the data, I think a good way to get the data simplified is to look at it in three ways: citizen issues, sanitation issues, and other issues that do not fit within either of the categories. To further clarify, citizen issues deals with problems that are caused by the average New Yorker – of illegal dumping, residents not cleaning up their garbage properly, etc. Sanitation issues refer to problems caused by the department itself – of complaints about workers, baskets not being picked up, etc. I wonder: As we continue into this new normal, which specific complaints can the DSNY focus on to decrease the amount of sanitation-related 311 calls the city receives and, more consequently, improve the quality of life of New Yorkers and performance of the agency? Additionally, how has the volume of DSNY-related 311 service requests changed throughout the pandemic?
Each of the complaint types were coded the following way:
Citizen Issues |
Sanitation Issues |
Other |
Abandoned Bike | Collection Truck Noise |
Litter Basket / Request
|
Derelict Bicycle | DSNY Spillage |
Other Enforcement
|
Derelict Vehicle | Employee Behavior |
Sanitation Condition
|
Dirty Conditions | Missed Collection | Snow |
Graffiti | Missed Collection (All Materials) |
Vacant Lot
|
Recycling Enforcement
|
Overflowing Litter Baskets | |
Snow Removal | ||
Sweeping/Inadequate | ||
Sweeping/Missed |
The 311 Service Requests were sorted through and pulled from NYC Open Data. Since analysis is for the time period of the pandemic, data was pulled from March 11, 2020 (my first day of working from home) through August of 2021.
City officials, specifically in the DSNY, but also beyond at City Hall, would be interested in seeing the answer to the research questions above. Having this information would be beneficial to these stakeholders because it can influence where departmental resources are distributed for more efficient use of the DSNY workforce. Additionally, this information can determine if there is any legislation that can be passed to improve conditions for New Yorkers.
To begin I created a stacked bar chart to demonstrate which types of issues are reported most frequently and further, to show which complaint types are most common in each. I chose to do a stacked bar chart because it allows us to see both of these measures in one chart.
In reviewing the stacked bar chart above, we can observe the following:
Design choices for stacked bar chart:
I tried to keep this chart simple, as to communicate clearly. I coded each of the issue types with different colors and then made a gradient for each of the complaint types. We primarily look at the quantities here, so I made sure the tooltip only contained the important information – the complaint type and quantity.
Below, we see how DSNY-related 311 service request volume has changed throughout the pandemic. It is important to note that for all graphs below, we used the date that the report was created, which would correspond to the day that the call was initially made.
I also broke these out into the different issue-type categories to see if there was anything to glean from those differences.
We can observe the following:
I am most interested in doing further analysis on the Missed Collection, Dirty Conditions, and Derelict Vehicle complaint types as those are the most common 311 reports to the DSNY. Further analysis of these complaint types can provide information to resolve the most frequent complaints from both issue categories.
We can observe from the line graph above:
Design Choices for Line Graphs: I decided to make the line graphs very simple and thought that it was more beneficial to split the categories and complaint types into different graphs to make it more easy to view.
I had initially tried to do these charts as a bar graph or pie chart. Both were quite ineffective and unnecessary, so I decided to go with a table. We can observe that in all of these categories, most of the tickets are closed.
Opportunities for further analysis:
There are many interesting things to be gleaned from looking at the DSNY 311 Data. It is fair to conclude that both Citizen and Sanitation issues are of big concern and that the Missed Collection, Dirty Conditions, and Derelict Vehicle complaint types are the most common. It would be fair to suggest that DSNY officials take a closer look at these specific complaint types to try and decrease the amount of calls they get in those categories.
Interestingly, it appears that the Winter months of 2021 got the highest volume of 311 complaint calls with another spike happening in the warmer months of 2020.
With this, there are definitely more questions and further analysis to be done.
Please see my Blogpost 1 titled AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF 311 CALLS HANDLED BY THE DSNY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC where I completed these steps.