Large Scale Data collection

For large scale data collection, we had initially decided to attempt crowdsourcing to cover more areas by recruiting volunteers. However, considering the limited time frame of the project and the complexities of recruiting volunteers, we revised our methodology to rely on existing team members, using 3 Android phones.

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Once the data collection methodology was successfully tested and established, the city’s geography and the retail hubs were charted on a physical map. Given the limited time-frame of the project, the data collection geography was narrowed down to the retail-centric areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn only. The large-scale data collection began on Sep 14th, 2021 and progressed until Nov 17th, 2021. Three team members were designated to collect data across the designated geographies, by walking on sidewalks and public spaces using both apps simultaneously for collecting data. In a total of 2555 minutes of data collection and using three Android phones, we covered approx. 102 kms of distance within 129 census tract geographies across the two boroughs, and collected 346,887 records of beacon signal hits.