{"id":203,"date":"2017-08-24T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T07:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?post_type=studies&p=6769"},"modified":"2017-08-24T07:01:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T11:01:00","slug":"the-madness-that-is-boston-move-in-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/research\/the-madness-that-is-boston-move-in-day\/","title":{"rendered":"The Madness That is Boston Move-in Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you don\u2019t live in Boston, you probably don\u2019t know about the struggles faced by students during the dreaded move-in period. Every year, between late August and early September, new and returning students move into dorms or new apartments near the city’s universities. While moving week is a common occurrence every year, that doesn\u2019t dampen the annoyance of dealing with streets flooded with furniture, traffic delays, and finding alternative routes to work etc. Inspired by the heat map for 2016 used by Kyle Scott Clauss, we decided to take a deeper look into the madness that is Boston move-in day (note, though, that the data\/heatmap is no longer available on the Data Boston website for 2017)<\/strong>. After all, it always helps to know which areas to avoid around the move-in dates in the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

Viewing the Madness Through Heat Maps<\/span><\/h2>\n
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We looked at the data provided by the City of Boston for street occupancy permits. Historically, the entire data set was available on Data Boston<\/a>. This year, though, the data cuts off on July 20th, 2017 (as Data Boston transitioned to a new website). The data is still available from the official site for the City of Boston<\/a> (but in an imperfect format). We merged the two sets together to create our 2017 daily heat map. The data provides us with the issued moving truck permits for dates up to September 16, 2017. We focus exclusively on the expiration dates of the moving truck permits (which generally coincide with the actual moving dates) instead of the permit issuance dates. You can only apply online for a permit if your moving date is at least two weeks away, and no more than a month away. We created two maps:<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. A weekly heat map of Boston showing the number of issued moving truck permits on a weekly basis.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. A daily heat map of Boston showing the number of issued moving truck permits on a daily basis.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Like the previously published maps, both of the embedded maps below show the addresses of the moving truck permits that were issued.\u00a0<\/span>Looking at the maps, it is easy to spot which neighborhoods are busier than others, and under which time frame and dates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Weekly Heat Map of Boston 2016 (for comparison)<\/span><\/h2>\n