I don't know if I would worry too much. It is probably a fairly inexpensive program to run so they probably aren't looking to cut anything. If I had to guess I would bet next years survey comes the end of September when noone is on vacation or off from school so that someone can tout their improvement and look for more funding.
aircooled wrote: So you are saying they are surveying EVERYONE participating at the company for that week? Doh! I always thought it would be nice to have a birthday on Halloween BTW. You would always have a well attended birthday party... they wouldn't stay long... (so, happy b-day whomever happens to have that coincidence.)
For what it’s worth, I did a little more digging and found that the survey is specifically administered by the South Coast Air Quality Management District under the Air Pollution Control Agency and covers all of Los Angeles and Orange County.
So, again, the ridiculously unrepresentative week chosen isn’t explained by a random distribution of sampling weeks across areas, companies or whatever.
Nope, somebody is hard at work cooking the E36 M3 out of the books for some nefarious personal gain.
RX Reven' wrote:dculberson wrote:...sorry, I'm not buying the "Nothing to See Here"Beer Baron wrote: Or maybe it's a drone who's got a deadline on when they need to provide numbers for ride sharing, and they forgot until the last moment, and so are just grabbing the only week available to them before November to give them barely enough time to compile their report before the end of the year.That seems really likely. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
OK, but I'm not buying the "must be a conspiracy to rig numbers!" either.
How long does it take to make up a survey with totally fake numbers?
Q-"Hi, I am from the Government, how many of you rideshare?"
A-"100%, have a good day"
RX Reven' wrote: ProDarwin wrote, “Halloween is a holiday?” I hope you’re not trying to tag me on semantics…I’m pretty annoyed right now, please don’t poke the bear.
sorry, but I still agree with him … halloween isn't Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day … did I miss any … halloween isn't any of those
school's not out, people aren't going to the beach, they're not going to Grandma's house ….etc….
In reply to wbjones:
Nobody is calling it a "holiday" but it's still an event that messes up the daily routine of a lot of people - mainly parents leaving early to get thier kids ready for trick-or-treating, and as such it may throw off ride-sharing statistics
If outlier results in low transit ridership were desired, cherry-picking a week with a holiday that's not a federal holiday is much less likely to draw suspicion. I never would have noticed.
ProDarwin wrote: Halloween is a holiday?
Samhain is. 
"They pretend to survey, we pretend to answer."
I can tell you from experience that Halloween, the day before thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and the week after Christmas all have noticeably lower transit ridership and traffic. If you wanted higher than normal traffic survey the day before thanksgiving is nightmarish as well as the Thursday before Memorial Day and the first week of school.
I don't doubt it … just seems weird to me … never ever saw any difference at work, and I've been in the work force since the late '60's …
different regions ??? who knows … lack of paying attention on my part ??? but still there never was any difference anywhere I worked 
In reply to wbjones:
Might be regional... up here in the Northeast, it's not uncommon for folks to go all-out for Halloween - some of them rival Christmas for decorating.
Given my born-again mother's current opinion of Halloween, maybe less celebrated in the bible-belt states? 
that maybe the difference … who knows … there's lots of trick-r-treaters … but not much home decorations .. there's some, just not much
it could still be my lack of awareness 
Eh. Its celebrated, but not in a way I would think would have a "wild" impact on ridesharing. Nobody I work with directly left any earlier due to the "holiday". The parking lot was no more empty than usual at 4pm on Friday. Trick or treating doesn't start until like 7:00ish right?
You do realize that halloween is the 2nd highest grossing holiday in the world, marginally behind Christmas right? I think its a bigger deal.than a lot of you guys realize...
ProDarwin wrote: Eh. Its celebrated, but not in a way I would think would have a "wild" impact on ridesharing. Nobody I work with directly left any earlier due to the "holiday". The parking lot was no more empty than usual at 4pm on Friday. Trick or treating doesn't start until like 7:00ish right?
Not around here. I got home around 7pm and didn't get a single one (of course, my porch light doesn't work and I don't decorate), despite seeing kids all over the place during my drive home - which was a bit slower than usual as I drive through some residential areas where I had to go extra slow watching for kids.
Halloween is a huge deal here. I don't know how it is where the op is but if it is like NY then many people are commuting 90+ minutes so to be home at 4 to take the kiddies out you are leaving by 2 so many people don't bother to come in or work half days. Many who don't have kids are going out to parties. It is one of my favorite nights to work outside to see the work that goes into the costumes headed to the Halloween Parade.
there's never been a halloween parade here
Wally wrote: Halloween is a huge deal here. I don't know how it is where the op is but if it is like NY then many people are commuting 90+ minutes so to be home at 4 to take the kiddies out you are leaving by 2 so many people don't bother to come in or work half days. Many who don't have kids are going out to parties. It is one of my favorite nights to work outside to see the work that goes into the costumes headed to the Halloween Parade.
Hi Wally,
…northern part of Los Angeles county.
Hi Hive,
We’ve got 1,400 people at my facility and the parking was typical in the morning, noticeably thinner than average after lunch, and nearly empty by 3:00.
I don’t participate in the car pool about once per month for various reasons and last Friday was one of those days due to it being Halloween. BTW, the survey has drop down boxes for vacation days, sick days, etc. so those days are presumably excluded from the analysis.
Bottom line, my true long term participation rate is ~95% but my apparent participation for the year will only be 80%...that’s a 300% exaggeration in the estimated percent of days missed relative to reality.
It is what it is…the parking lot was nearly empty two hours before normal due to a slow trickle of attrition starting at lunch.
You can’t carpool when you’re trickling.
wbjones wrote: there's never been a halloween parade here
That's too bad.
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