The methods of analyses occurred in two steps.
We first had to determine whether the project would be helpful for people beyond the 54,236 students that are currently enrolled at the Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia. While this is a large number of people, especially for a university campus, a new Skytrain Line would have implications for every person within its proximity. This was demonstrated in the study performed in Chicago by Real Estate Economics.
In this study, the benefit of a new transit line was analyzed through the proxy of median household income, as accrued by Dissemination Area data. The geographical location of each DA’s household income data were compared to their proximity to existing Skytrain lines in Vancouver, then assessed for any spatial autocorrelation.
Once we determined that there was indeed economic and social capital to be gained from conducting this new transit project, we attempted to find the most cost efficient way to construct the route. To start, we determined 4 possible starting points from already existing Skytrain stations: Broadway Station, King Edward Station, Oakridge Station, and Langara Station. The end point was established as the UBC bus loop.
Using cost surfaces and least-cost path generations, we were able to determine the shortest and most cost-efficient path from each of the 4 stations to the UBC endpoint.