July 28, 2014

Stat of the Week Competition: July 26 – August 1 2014

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Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

  • Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday August 1 2014.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of July 26 – August 1 2014 inclusive.
  • Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

The fine print:

  • Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
  • The judges’ decision will be final.
  • The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
  • Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
  • Individual posts on Stats Chat are just the opinions of their authors, who can criticise anyone who they feel deserves it, but the Stat of the Week award involves the Department of Statistics more officially. For that reason, we will not award Stat of the Week for a statistic coming from anyone at the University of Auckland outside the Statistics department. You can still nominate and discuss them, but the nomination won’t be eligible for the prize.
  • Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
  • The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
  • The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
  • The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
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Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »

Nominations

  • avatar
    Nick Iversen

    Statistic: Early start to city rail link ‘highly realistic’
    Source: New Zealand Herald
    Date: 30 July 2014

    This is another “extrapolation” problem similar to the elephant problem of two weeks ago.

    Rail patronage is reported to have increased 15% over the last year. If we extrapolate that rate for 4 more years we get 11.5*1.15^4 = 20.1 million passengers which presumably gives rise to the statement “20 million target will be met by 2018.”

    Only problem is: looking at the data in the charts it seems to me that that 15% growth rate is an anomaly. Maybe it was due to the clampdown in fare evaders in 2013 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/aucklander/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503378&objectid=11091857).

    It sure looks to me as if the number of passengers has levelled out at about 11 million. Maybe there is a trend there but I don’t see 15% for the next 4 years.

    We need more evidence though before suggesting that the trend has levelled out:

    How bout this: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11297278 “Auckland CBD office space at critical shortage.”

    There just doesn’t seem to be enough space to increase the number of people who travel to the CBD. The growth rate will drop from a 20 year average of 8.2% to nearer zero. So that’s going to have an effect on patronage growth. Future growth would have to come from people switching to the train from other forms of transport.

    Given that the 15% looks like an anomaly and that we expect downward pressure on growth rates in the future compared to the low rates of the past I don’t see patronage getting to 20 million by 2018.

    10 years ago