Auto Theft in Vancouver:
Time, Transit, and Zoning
The Relationship Between Bus Stops and Auto Theft
The accessiblity of a given area is an important factor in regards to the likelihood of crime occur. In order to determine whether or not the location of bus stops affects the location of auto theft, existing points of theft will be compared to randomly generated points. Understanding the relationship between auto theft and transit may allow car owners to find safe locations to store their vehicles.
While the map above appears to be very crowded, there are particular locations of importance. Stanely park, just north of downtown, experience no auto theft in 2010 but is an available location for theft to occur. As a result, many randomly generated points feel within this location. Another location which experienced the same result is the south west of the city.
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The above slideshow depicts histograms which describe the distribution of both the auto theft locations and the randomly generated points in regards to their distance from the nearest bus stop. While the histograms follow a similar pattern, the auto theft histograms displays a much lower mean value and a tighter range of values. The randomly generated points had a mean of close to double that of the auto theft points and a significantly larger range of results. Even though bus stops are distributed throughout Vancouver, the auto theft points were much closer to bus stops than the randomly generated points, suggesting that there is a relationship between the distance from a bus and the likelihood of auto theft.
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To determine the spatial distribution of the auto theft layer, the average nearest neighbour function was used which produced a dispersed result which was significant. When performing a global Moran's I test on the distance that auto thefts occur from bus stops, however, a significant clustered response is returned. This suggests that there is a cluster for auto thefts for a particular range of distance away from bus stops.
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