Uncovering Trends in Seasonal Transportation Data: New Tool Analyzes Airline Revenue Passenger-Mile Trend Data

Details

• Creators:
  Feuerberg, Gary
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Seasons
  • Passenger miles
  • Trend (Statistics)
• Publication/ Report Number:
  TR-003
• Series:
  BTS Special Reports and Issue Briefs
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.21949/1501601
• Resource Type:
  Brief
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• Abstract:
  Transportation activity often varies appreciably from month to month and season to season, making it difficult to discern from the data whether the overall trend for the activity is increasing, unchanging, or decreasing. Traditionally, analysts adjust data to compensate for these fluctuations; however, conventional methods of "controlling" seasonal factors can be limiting—particularly when viewing trends over many years or months. But by eliminating the seasonal influence, rather than simply controlling for it, decades of data can be grasped at a glance. In October 2004, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) began to remove the seasonal fluctuation in the data used in its monthly Transportation Services Index (TSI). And, although the approach for removing seasonal factors from airline revenue passenger-miles (RPMs) is examined here, this same approach can be used for most data series that show strong seasonal variation.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/35460/dot_35460_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 174.95 KB]
• Collection(s):
  BTS Products
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:d0cee8614bdb32aca5a9305e0119c88a4244f1497dd36f20572c13d76e1b8719