Data Analysis · Time Series Analysis · Transportation Analytics · 2026

Time Series Analysis of Vehicle Volume on the Merak–Bakauheni Ferry Route

A time series analysis of monthly vehicle crossings on the Merak–Bakauheni ferry route from 2023 to 2024. Using R, the project examines short-term growth and recurring seasonal patterns, with the highest monthly volume reaching 820 thousand vehicles in April 2024.

Time-series chart of Merak–Bakauheni vehicle volume from 2023 to 2024, showing the main traffic peak in April.
  • 820KPeak volumeApril 2024
  • +6.57%Average increaseMonthly average, 2023 → 2024
  • 24Monthly observationsJanuary 2023 – December 2024
  • 2Recurring peak monthsApril and December
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Objective

Analyze monthly vehicle volume on the Merak–Bakauheni route to identify short-term changes, determine peak traffic months, compare patterns across years, and assess whether the observed fluctuations are more consistent with seasonality or multi-year cycles.

Results and limitations

Peak volume reached 820 thousand vehicles in April 2024; average monthly vehicle volume increased by approximately 6.57% from 2023 to 2024.

Every month in 2024 recorded higher vehicle volume than the corresponding month in 2023, with increases of roughly 30–40 thousand vehicles per month. Average monthly volume rose from 488.33 thousand to 520.42 thousand vehicles, an increase of about 6.57%. The main peak occurred repeatedly in April, reaching 780 thousand vehicles in 2023 and 820 thousand in 2024, with another peak in December. The pattern is more consistent with calendar-related seasonality. However, the dataset contains only 24 observations across two years, which is insufficient to establish a long-term trend or multi-year cycle statistically. Monthly boxplots also contain only two observations per calendar month and should therefore be interpreted descriptively.

Visual evidence

Monthly volume ranges from 410 thousand to 820 thousand vehicles, with the main peak in April and a second peak in December.
The 2023 and 2024 series follow a similar pattern, with a February low and recurring peaks in April and December.
April has the highest median volume at 800 thousand vehicles, followed by December at 620 thousand; each month contains only two observations.
Time-series plot of Merak–Bakauheni vehicle volume from January 2023 to December 2024.
Monthly volume ranges from 410 thousand to 820 thousand vehicles, with the main peak in April and a second peak in December.
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Technical details

Open implementation details

Role and contribution

Worked on the entire project independently. Structured the monthly vehicle data as an R time series, performed descriptive trend and seasonal analysis, compared monthly patterns across years, created the visualizations, interpreted recurring peak periods, and documented the analysis in R Markdown.

Methodology

Converted 24 monthly observations from January 2023 to December 2024 into an R ts object with a frequency of 12. The analysis compared each month in 2024 with the corresponding month in 2023, calculated annual averages and year-over-year differences, and used a time-series plot, seasonal plot, and monthly boxplots to examine recurring calendar-related patterns.

Technologies

  • R
  • R Markdown
  • knitr
  • rmarkdown
  • Base R
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