In Memoriam

Real World Index

December 21, 2011 — October 12, 2016

Real World Index was an experiment in real-time data to measure what matters in our society. I still think it's important to bring social and environmental metrics into our day-to-day awareness. But it's not a job to which I can do justice in my spare time.

The decision to retire this project came after realising that Real World Index had plateaued. I haven't had time to add new metrics, and some of the ones I had started with were no longer working reliably. There are data quality issues. I'm not a statistician, and I never was able to synthesize the data into a clear, meaningful index.

I leave this thread here, in the hope that someone picks it up and wants to move forward with it in the future. If that someone is you, please get in touch.

— Sam Nabi

Screenshots

Real World Index: Homepage dashboard Real World Index: Traffic disruption details

Data

Use this data at your own risk. It is certainly not suitable for academic use.

Data quality issues

Instances of data loss

Air Quality

Download
samnabi_rwi_aqi.csv [6.9 mb]
Columns
Timestamp, Date, Average AQI, Barrie, Belleville, Brampton, Brantford, Burlington, Chatham, Cornwall, Dorset, Grand Bend, Guelph, Hamilton Downtown, Hamilton Mountain, Hamilton West, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Mississauga, Morrisburg, Newmarket, North Bay, Oakville, Oshawa, Ottawa Central, Ottawa Downtown, Parry Sound, Petawawa, Peterborough, Port Stanley, Sarnia, Sault Ste Marie, St Catharines, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Tiverton, Toronto Downtown, Toronto East, Toronto North, Toronto West, Windsor Downtown, Windsor West
Start date
2012-01-28 20:00:00
End date
2016-06-29 09:00:00
Source
http://www.airqualityontario.com/aqhi/index.php

Waterloo Region Crime

Download
samnabi_rwi_crime_waterloo.csv [169 kb]
Columns
Motor Vehicle Collision Damage, Disturbance, Traffic, Theft Under 5k, Theft Over 5k, Property Damage, Motor Vehicle Collision Injury, Timestamp, Date, Total, Robbery, Assault, Breaking and Entering, Drugs, Threatening, Offensive Weapon, Motor Vehicle Theft, Prostitution, Fire, Other
Start date
2012-02-17
End date
2016-10-11
Source
http://www.wrps.on.ca/mediacentre/dailycallsummary.html

Electricity Demand

Download
samnabi_rwi_electricity_demand.csv [6.8 mb]
Columns
Timestamp, Date, Total Market Demand, Ontario Demand
Start date
2002-05-01 01:00:00
End date
2016-10-11 22:00:00
Source
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/market/mi5_includes/maag/maag_xml/maag.xml

Electricity Type

Download
samnabi_rwi_electricity_type.csv [3.1 mb]
Columns
Timestamp, Date, Total, Nuclear, Hydro, Natural Gas, Coal, Wind, Other
Start date
2011-12-21 13:00:00
End date
2016-10-11 22:00:00
Source
http://www.ieso.ca/

Lake Ontario Water Levels

Download
samnabi_rwi_lakeontario.csv [2.9 mb]
Columns
Timestamp, Date, Port Weller, Burlington, Toronto, Cobourg, Kingston
Start date
2012-04-01 01:00:00
End date
2016-09-16 12:00:00
Source
http://www.great-lakes.net/envt/water/levels/levels-cur/ontwlc.html

Ontario Highway Traffic Disruptions

Download
samnabi_rwi_traffic.csv [3.1 mb]
Columns
Timestamp, Date, Total, Niagara, Hamilton, Halton, Peel, Toronto, York, Durham, Simcoe, Bancroft, Ontario East, Ottawa
Start date
2012-08-06 17:00:00
End date
2016-10-12 00:00:00
Source
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/trip/traffic_reports.shtml