This is my first Data Analysis Project. I did it as part of Google Data Analytics course. There are three documents, Prepare and Process Data, Analysis, and Findings and Recommendations.

Question

“How do annual members and casual riders use Divvy bikes differently?”

Divvy Bike Share Data

October 2023 to September 2025

“Divvy is the bicycle sharing system in the Chicago metropolitan area, currently serving the cities of Chicago and Evanston. The system is owned by the Chicago Department of Transportation and has been operated by Lyft since 2019.”
Source: Wikipedia

Data download from https://divvy-tripdata.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html.

Findings

More Trips by Member Riders

Total Number of Rides by Each Rider Type
Rider Type No of Rides Percent
member 7,121,972 64.25%
casual 3,962,010 35.75%
Total 11,083,982 100%

Member riders’ daily average number of trips for were much higher than casual riders. The casual:member ratio was 1:1.8.

Please note that the number of trips is not the same as the number of users.

Casual Riders Daily Number of Trips Change A Lot

Casual riders’ daily average number of trips varied considerably day by day and season by season.

Same Bike Preference

Both groups rode electrical bikes more than classic bikes. There was not much difference between two groups.

On Weekdays, Different Patterns

Ride patterns by time of the day were differ. On weekdays, member riders had sharp spikes during morning and evening rush hours, casual riders did not. On weekends, both groups had the same pattern and did not have any spike.

Casual Riders Ride More on Weekend Then Weekday

Casual riders rode more on weekends than on weekdays. Member riders rode more on weekdays than on weekends.

Both Groups Do Not Like Cold Seasons

Both rider groups rode less during cold seasons, but number of casual riders’ trips dropped a lot more than member riders.

Casual Riders Riding Time Are Longer

Casual riders’ had longer riding duration per trip than member riders. These were always true when consider other factors.

Most Casual Riders Are Visitors

Casual riders’ hot spots were around tourist attractions on both weekdays and weekends. Member riders’ weekday hotspots were near major transportation hubs, business areas and universities, and weekend hotspot were outside business areas.

Casual Riders Ride for Sightseeing

The popular routes for both groups confirm the hotspot analysis. Casual riders’ popular routes were long routes that connect tourist hotspots. Member riders’ weekdays popular routes were short and within dense commercial areas. For weekends, member riders’ routes were longer and outside commercial areas.

What’s We Can Implied?

From the riding behavior, we can assume that majority of casual riders in this data were visitors. They used Divvy bikes to visit many tourist attractions in Chicago area. There is also a small percentage of casual riders that use Divvy bikes to commute to and from business areas.

We can also assume that member riders in this data were people who live or work in Chicago. The use divvy bikes to commute between major transportation hubs and business areas.

Recommendations

The main business problem we try to solve here is “How to maximizing the number of annual members for future growth?” The goal of this analysis is to help “design marketing strategies aimed at converting casual riders into annual members.”

Before any recommendation, we need to consider that can we convert casual riders into annual members? The answer is yes, but for only certain segment of casual riders. The results of this analysis point to that annual members are the people who live or work in Chicago area, and majority of casual riders are visitors. With this in mind, These are the recommendation.

Target casual riders who live or work or study in Downtown Chicago area.

  • Focus advertising around major transit stations, Loop, and major Universities in Chicago area.
  • Focus on message about saving and convenience. For student, focus on student member discount.
  • On Divvy app, notify users after curtain number of rides to remind them about member benefits.
  • Joint campaign with CTA

Target casual riders who does not live or work in Chicago but live in nearby city and likely to visit Chicago often.

  • Focus advertising at major tourist attractions and public parking near them in Chicago area.
  • Focus on messages about convenience.
  • On Divvy app, notify users after curtain number of rides to remind them about member benefits.
  • New kind of member such as season pass, or weekend pass.

Target general visitors. This rider group will not buy an annual membership. However, we should try to increase the number of casual riders too.

  • Focus advertising at major tourist attractions, convention centers, airport, and train station.
  • Placing ad on search about visiting Chicago.
  • Message about bike as transportation options and convenient.
  • Promote Lyft Pink.
  • Joint promotion with travel website such as Expedia.

Collect more information about users and non-users

  • Random sampling survey of casual riders, annual members, and non-members will help further understand their behavior.
  • Give away free ride to non-users who answer a survey may help them learn about Divvy Bikes and may become user in a future.

Credit

Divvy Bikes infomation

Chicago Information

This analysis cannot be done with out these r libraries:

  • tidyverse
  • lubridate
  • hms
  • readr
  • scales
  • knitr
  • gridExtra
  • ggmap
  • tidyquant
  • svglite
  • ggbreak
  • ggnewscale
  • circlize
  • prettydoc
  • igraph
  • ggraph
  • networkD3
  • rmdformats

Map of Chicago provide by Stadia Maps

Chicago Population from Forest Gregg’s github “Chicago-dots”

I also learn a lot form the following r websites.