About Aggies on the Moove

Aggies on the Moove began with a single thought: how does the UC Davis community get to campus? This seemingly simple question revealed an incredibly complex transportation network, uniquely rich in its scale, design, and effectiveness. UC Davis, beyond its grand oaks and shining water towers (and of course cows!), is a university made iconic by its transportation. Davis has been called the 'Bicycle Capital of America', a moniker that becomes self-evident when visiting the streets of downtown or sun-speckled paths of campus. UC Davis is also the home of University Transport, or Unitrans, the instantly recognizable red buses that carry students, faculty, and city residents throughout town. The vintage London double-decks (and the other buses that make up the 48 bus fleet) aren't just a crimson symbol of local pride, though. With just 18 routes, Unitrans carries over 4 million riders annually, boasting the 3rd highest number of passengers per vehicle hour in California.

Understanding the multi-modal nature of campus commuting is vital for long range planning, targeted infrastructure improvements, and climate change mitigation. However, the data necessary to study UCD transportation holistically is fragmented, existing in pieces across countless campus units and departments. This includes parking permit data, ridership numbers, bicycle access, bus on time performance, and more. The ASUCD Innovation and Research Lab (IRL) sought to solve this problem with the creation of Aggies on the Moove (AotM), a centralized resource for transportation data, information, and analytics. Aggies on the Moove compiles information from various sources, processing complex, diverse datasets into one centralized database.

This database is accessible through this website, allowing planners, researchers, students, educators, and enthusiasts to answer questions about transportation at UC Davis, procedurally visualizing insights and summarizing key statistical features. We have designed unique queries that allow non-technical users to interactively interface with Davis transportation data, answering questions ranging from statistical summaries to peak/pattern analyses.

The goal of this tool is to make Davis transit data more interpretable, digestible, and accessible. By increasing the transparency regarding campus commutes, IRL hopes to help the Davis student body become more informed, while providing valuable data for planners and researchers to improve campus travel. Beyond that, this data serves as an excellent educational resource for transportation, statistics, data science, and more!

Aggies on the Moove has been the result of over a year of research, outreach, building, and hard work. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Peace, love, and statistics,
IRL jermt