Google Data Analytics Certificate — Capstone Project
A Data-Driven Campaign Strategy
Cyclistic's finance team determined that annual members are significantly more profitable than casual riders. This analysis was commissioned to identify behavioral patterns that would enable targeted, data-driven conversion campaigns.
| Annual Members | Casual Riders | |
|---|---|---|
| Avg. trip duration | 12 minutes | 19 minutes (+58%) |
| Median trip duration | 8.6 min | 11.3 min |
| Peak days | Mon – Fri | Sat – Sun |
| Peak hours | 8am & 5–6pm | 12pm – 6pm |
| Station pattern | City-wide (residential + commercial) | Lakefront (tourist + recreational) |
| Winter demand | Consistent year-round | Nearly disappears (–92% vs. peak) |
The activity heatmap shows members peaking at rush hours on weekdays — consistent with using bikes as a transportation tool. Casual riders peak on weekend afternoons, consistent with leisure, tourism, and recreation.
At 19 min average vs. 12 min for members, casual riders extract 58% more time per ride — while paying per trip instead of a flat annual fee. Frequent casual riders are structurally overpaying for the same usage a membership would cover.
Casual rides drop to ~25K in January vs. ~330K in August. Demand starts accelerating in April, creating a clear conversion window: reach casual riders before they lock into a summer of pay-per-trip habits.
The top casual stations concentrate near Millennium Park, Navy Pier, and Grant Park — Chicago's primary tourist and recreational corridor. Members distribute across residential and commercial neighborhoods city-wide.
Explore the full analysis — heatmap, seasonality, duration distribution, and station map — built in Tableau Public.
Three targeted recommendations, each directly tied to the behavioral data above:
Casual demand is accelerating but has not yet peaked. This is the highest-ROI window to reach casual riders before they establish a full summer of pay-per-trip habits. Offer a time-limited discounted annual membership valid for the full summer season.
Behavioral data shows casual riders are most active on Saturday and Sunday afternoons (12–6pm). Deploy targeted push notifications personalized to each rider's actual usage history: "You've taken 12 rides this month. A membership would have covered all of them at a lower per-ride cost."
The top casual stations are near Millennium Park, Navy Pier, and the Museum Campus. Place QR codes and promotional signage at these dock stations. Staff seasonal brand activations during peak summer weekends — guaranteed exposure to the exact target audience.
Tools used in this analysis:
Motivate International Inc. (2026). Divvy trip data [Dataset]. Made available under the Divvy Data License Agreement. "Cyclistic" is a fictional company name used in the Google Data Analytics Certificate capstone project; the underlying data reflects real Divvy Bikes trip records from Chicago.