In spring 2015, the District Department of Transportation realized it knew almost nothing about the secret lives of Capital Bikeshare bikes. They just didn’t have the data.

So DDOT outfitted 130 bikes with GPS trackers and, starting on April 20, 2015, let them collect data until the batteries ran out. A few weeks later the department collected 94 of the trackers and began to think about interpreting all the new information. Ultimately, DDOT went to Virginia Tech’s Urban and Regional Planning program in Alexandria and asked for help.

This is all according to a Mobility Lab post by Jon Wergin, a recent graduate of the Virginia Tech program mentioned above, who has been digging through the Capital Bikeshare data as part of his capstone. On Tuesday he published the first in what promises to be a series of posts visualizing bikeshare rides taken in the District.

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