Auto Theft in Vancouver:
Time, Transit, and Zoning
Temporal Process
There are two main questions that should be asked regarding the temporal aspect of car theft in Vancouver. The first question is in regards to whether there is some sort of seasonality or changes in the rate of theft between months. The next question is whether or not there is spatial shift in regards to changes in time. These questions are important to ask as there answer changes in risk of auto theft throughout the year. With this knowledge, car owners behaviour has the chance to adapt to decrease their exposure to auto theft.
Other than the month of February, most months in Vancouver have a similar rate of theft, although changes may appear stark due to the low levels of experienced auto theft.
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 Monthly Distribution of Auto Theft |
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 Central Mean of Monthly Auto Theft |
 Spatial Autocorrelation Report Month |
The first image, Monthly Distribution of Auto Theft, shows the points of auto theft with a value associated with the month of the year in which the theft occurred. Upon visual analysis, the neighbours of the majority of points occur within a different month. This temporally distributed pattern is reinforced by the location of the central mean of each month. The second image displays the central mean for all twelve months of the year. Because the central mean does not travel very far between months or on a whole throughout the year, the locations of thefts throughout the city must be relatively evenly distributed on the basis of time. Finally, the last image shows the results of a Global Moran's I test. Using the auto left layer and the input field of month, the test determine that the points were randomly distributed, also supporting the findings of the first two images.
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