Project goal:
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) has approached the data consulting firm Automatidata to develop an app that enables TLC riders to estimate the taxi fares in advance of their ride.
Congrats on your new job as a data analyst at a data consulting firm called Automatidata. Automatidata works with its clients to transform their unused and stored data into useful solutions, such as performance dashboards, customer-facing tools, strategic business insights, and more. They specialize in identifying a client’s business needs and utilizing their data to meet those business needs.
In this role, you will consult with The New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission to develop an app that will help users (TLC riders) estimate their taxi fares before their ride. The agency has partnered with Automatidata to develop a regression model that helps estimate taxi fares before the ride, based on data that TLC has gathered. Your first responsibility as a data analytics consultant will be to structure the necessary tasks into a project proposal that establishes milestones for the ride fare data project.
Automatidata is in the earliest stages of the TLC project. The following tasks are needed before the team can begin the data analysis process:
For your first assignment, Automatidata will need a project proposal that will create milestones for the tasks within the TLC project.
| Name | Role | Meeting Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Udo Bankole | Director of Data Analysis | • Before we present any insights to TLC, we'll need to determine whether or not the model we produce meets the project requirements. |
| • Once we have a final model, I'll need to know the main talking points going into our presentation with TLC. | ||
| Deshawn Washington | Data Analysis Manager | • I think it's best to use Python for the TLC project. I'll have someone on my team set that up as soon as we have the plan in place. |
| • It will be important to establish the relationship between any variables within the TLC data. I'd suggest the data team consider A/B testing, since that will analyze the relationship between the two most useful variables and subsequently provide data-driven support for future business decisions. | ||
| Luana Rodriquez | Senior Data Analyst | • The dataset from TLC has to be inspected before any analysis can begin. |
| • Our team needs to determine what information the TLC data provides through exploratory data analysis (EDA). | ||
| • Eventually, our team will need to test to find if the model is delivering consistent results. | ||
| Uli King | Senior Project Manager | • The data team will need a global-level project document to outline the goals and milestones. |
| • I am working closely with Titus Nelson over at the New York City Taxi and Limo Commission. He has requested some visuals to share with TLC’s executives. |
Your teammates at Automatidata have technical experience with data analysis and data science. However, you should always be sure to keep summaries and messages to these team members concise and to the point.
| Juliana Soto | Finance and Administration Department Head |
|---|---|
| Titus Nelson | Operations Manager |
The TLC team members are program managers who oversee operations at the organization. Their roles are not highly technical, so be sure to adjust your language and explanation accordingly.
For your first task on the team, you’ll be diving right into our current contract with the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). The TLC has been collecting New York City- based data on taxi and rideshare trips for several years now. They've contracted our team to build a regression model that predicts taxi cab fares before each ride based on distance, time of day, and any additional variables we find necessary.
For your first task, please draft a plan of action for the team. Include questions we need to answer before we get started on the project, important details to consider at the beginning of the project, and action items we'll need throughout the duration of the project.