2  Course Structure

The course consists of an in-person 2-day course, taking place during the EIT DTN Annual Meeting on the 19th and 20th September 2024.

The first day will focus on learning the basics of R programming and how to treat and explore datasets. The second day will focus on analyzing spatial datasets, and routing origins to destinations.

2.1 Contents

Day 1

Morning

We will start by a brief introduction to this course, followed by an introduction to programming techniques and data structures.

Then, we will install R and RStudio, and and the required R packages for this course, as in Software section.

After having everything setup, we will start with the R basics, with examples and exercises.

Afternoon

In the afternoon, we will focus on data manipulation, using the dplyr package to select, filter, left-join, group and summarize datasets.

Then, we will introduce GIS and spatial data, learning how to importing and visualize vector data.

Finally, we will learn how to create cool interactive maps using mapview and R markdown.

Day 2

Morning

We will start the day by estimating the different types of centroids of transport zones.

After this, the natural next step is to create desire lines from orgins and destinations of the transport zones.

We will then learn how to estimate euclidean and routing distances for the desire-lines, using transport networks.

Afternoon

In the second afternoon, we will briefly learn where to find and extract open transportation data, such as OpenStreetMap and GTFS.

Then, we will learn how to perform accessibility analysis, using the r5r package.

And finally, to wrap up all this topics, we will have a group exercise using other complex datasets, where you will apply the knowledge learned during the course.

2.2 Detailed schedule

Day 1
9.30 Introductions and Presentation of the course contents
10.00 Introduction to programming techniques and data structures
10.30 Introduction to R and RStudio: hands-on to install software and main packages
11.00 Coffee break
11.15 (cont.)
11.30 R basics: examples and exercises
12.30 Lunch break
13.30 Data manipulation: examples and exercises (select, filter, left-join, group and summarize, using dplyr package)
15.30 Coffee break
15.45 Introduction to GIS and spatial data: import create vector data
16.30 View and export interactive maps
17.00 End of day 1
Day 2
9.30 Centroids of transport zones
10.15 Desire-lines from OD pairs and transport zones
11.00 Coffee break
11.15 (cont.)
11.30 Euclidean and routing distances with sf and r5r
12.30 Lunch break
13.30 Open Transportation data: where to find it (OSM and GTFS)
14.00 Accessibility analysis with r5r
16.00 Coffee break
16.15 Using you data: manipulation and spatial analysis methods and further applications
16.45 Survey and feedback from participants
17.00 End of day 2

2.3 Location

The course will take place at Campus Sterre, Building S8, room 2.4.

Code 
Campus_S8_coord = c(3.7105372, 51.0241258)
Campus_S8 = sf::st_sfc(sf::st_point(Campus_S8_coord)) # create point
Campus_S8 = sf::st_as_sf(Campus_S8, crs = 4326) # assign crs

mapview::mapview(Campus_S8, map.types = "OpenStreetMap") # quick map view

2.4 Resources

  • You laptop, with any OS

  • Github repository with all the materials (data, code and guidelines)

  • Survey datasets, school locations and public transport operator datasets