Dougall Percival - Open Data Stories Ottawa

Are Ottawa's Red Light Cameras Working?

Since 2001, Ottawa's red light camera's have provided automated enforcement of red light running at intersections through fines. Between 2015 and 2019, there was a 137% increase in tickets issued, which begs the question: are the cameras working?

government

How governments can improve decision making

It sometimes feels like the consideration of project impacts is lacking in government policy decisions ...

rural

Canada's rural internet problem

If you live in a major city, like Ottawa, chances are that you never have to deal with slow internet speeds. Every member of your household can go about working, studying, watching TV and gaming across the internet with no issues. It's especially important

housing

New Models for Housing

Living space on the roof. Houses stacked in the sky. Read on to hear my not-so crazy ideas about new models for housing in Ottawa.

Aggregate Intellect Workshop

On a whim in late October 2020, on the advice of a friend, I signed up for an AI Product Development course with educational start-up Aggregate Intellect. The course I signed up for was a six-week workshop with streams in Product Development, Machine Learning

NHL Draft Analysis

I don't know if Thomas Bayes would have liked hockey, but he might have enjoyed the NHL draft!

city of ottawa

A Tale of Two Cities: Summer Ottawa and Winter Ottawa

There’s an old joke in Canada, that goes like this. There are two seasons. Winter, and Construction. Laughter ensues. Ottawa is a city very much impacted by this duality.

DIY GUI: Cue Cards

Have you ever been in a test, or job interview, and received a question where you think "I should know that", but come up completely blank?

Injustice in Canada

Black Lives Matter. Indigenous Lives Matter.

ottawa

Room for Improvement: How COVID-19 Exposes Ottawa's Design Flaws

Social distancing, shuttered businesses, and working from home. All effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The measures in place here in Ottawa have brought to a light a different kind of issue - Ottawa has some serious design defects, and it's going to take a little elbow grease to fix them.

numpy

Image shading with OpenCV and Numpy

A quick guide to applying image filtering (brightening/darkening) in Python with OpenCV and Numpy.

It's been a while....

Welcome back to Open Data Stories Ottawa. I’m sorry for the long delay in posts. Ready to find out what I've been up to?

Road Safety: A Science Project

With the debate moving towards more safety, and roads designed for all users, I think we have a wonderful opportunity to do some experimenting with our city.

Analysis: Ottawa Senators

How did a team with the expectations it had, one goal away from the Cup Final the previous year, tank so hard?

Text Analysis: Contracts

Following up on the contracts dataset, I decided to dig a little bit deeper. I was curious to know what sort of contracts the city might be awarding on a regular basis. Though I think I could have figured it out just by looking around (its construction isn’t it?).

Road Safety

Here’s a good news story for you. Last year, there were no cyclists killed in traffic accidents. The bad news is, there were still 270 collisions involving bicycles. Overall

Contracts

Over the last two years, the city of Ottawa has awarded (and recorded) 4,455 contracts with a value over $25,000 (Canadian). The total value of all these contracts comes out to around $1.8 billion.

Ottawa Votes

Municipal election season is right around the corner. Mark your calendar, October 22, 2018 Ottawa is going to the polls. Exciting, I know. At least, for the 39% of eligible

A Different Kind of Road Toll

If you’ve spent much time on the roads in Ottawa, you are by now used to the potholes that dot the roads. From small cracks, to gaping sinkholes, they pop up pretty much anywhere rubber meets pavement.

Analysis: Street Trees

The heroes we need and deserve.

Sparks Street

Another top-down redesign isn’t going to change the myriad problems that plague Sparks Street.

ottawa

PRESTO! Better Connections

With my PRESTO card working in Ottawa and Toronto, I am picturing the next step. Via Rail’s busiest corridor, the “Quebec-City – Windsor Corridor”, is the perfect place for such a system to be put in place.

analysis

Analysis: Collisions

Car accidents are, technically, preventable. Unfortunately, that does not mean they never occur.

ottawa

Our Digital Future?

Perhaps we should pass the name "Silicon Valley North" over to Estonia.

analysis,

Analysis: Suspected Emergency Overdoses

An analysis of the suspected emergency overdoses dataset.