Ranking tourist attractions using time series GPS data of cabs

Global Position System (GPS) is a widely used satellite-based navigation system. Popular use of these devices has produced large collections of data, some of which have been archived. These archived data sets and sometimes real time GPS data are now readily available over the internet and their analysis through computational methods can generate meaningful insights. These insights when applied appropriately can be used in everyday life. The purpose of this research is to make the case that automated analysis can provide insight that can otherwise be difficult to achieve due the large volume and noisy characteristics of GPS data. We present experiments that were performed on archived data which contains GPS traces of over 500 yellow cabs in the San Francisco Bay area. Using data analysis we determine the most visited tourist destinations within the San Francisco Bay area during the time period of the captured data.