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  • We loved building a tool to visualize data from delivery services in real-time.
  • Analyzing and visualizing Hamburg’s ferry traffic revealed really interesting insights, such as timetable deviations due to the tides.
  • Our 2018 Christmas greeting is a digital snow globe. Have fun exploring and sharing! (https://xmas2018.ubilabs.com/)
  • Our location intelligence team analyzed the use of car-sharing services to and from Hamburg airport and its connection to public transport.
  • 500,000 ship positions a day: The Port of Hamburg is pretty busy.

Insights

2018: The year of data visualizations

As this year is slowly coming to an end, we’d like you to join us in looking back on 2018. It’s been a year full of different and exciting projects, but we still saw one common thread running through many of them: the analysis and visualization of data – especially with regards to their geospatial reference.

Geodata and visualization make up the DNA of Ubilabs. After our live map for Hamburg’s public transport, hvv.live, got so much positive feedback last year, we set out to focus on analyzing and visualizing geo and mobility data in 2018 again. The results were fascinating insights into Hamburg’s shipping traffic, public transport, and car-sharing services as well as into the e-commerce industry.

What’s going on in the Port of Hamburg?

Using our newly installed AIS antenna, we were able to collect data on ship movements in Hamburg throughout the year. Visualizing the data brought about these beautiful images. They show the traffic data of a single day – 500,000 ship positions – as well as the speed of the ships (via different colors). The data was visualized using Mapbox and kepler.gl and got a lot of love from the dev community: We were very proud when the visualizations were features in Uber’s visualization team newsletter in July.

Our Location Intelligence team also did a deep-dive on the data, analyzing the influence of the tides on the ferry traffic in Hamburg, identifying deviations from the timetable and predicting realistic arrival times.

What is the quickest way to the airport?

Another project that provided really interesting insights via visualization was a comparison between public transport and car-sharing services in Hamburg. For this, we analyzed trips to and from Hamburg Airport. The visualization showed telling patterns in the use of the different services, which explained "white spots" on the map, among other things.

What’s for dinner today?

In addition to logistics and mobility data, our Location Intelligence team also dealt with data analyses for the e-commerce industry. For a customer in the food sector, we developed a tool that visualizes the online order data of their delivery services in real time. The live tracker is equipped with additional data layers that predict future orders and deliveries.

Make it snow in our digital Christmas card

Of course, that’s not it for this year! We created Christmas greetings in typical Ubilabs style: an interactive snow globe. With this little gimmick, we wish you as well as all of our customers, partners, friends, and colleagues Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year – and lots of fun exploring and sharing our winter wonderland.

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