Driving Density Maps

Driving density maps are another way to look at my driving log data—in this case, showing how often I’ve driven in particular areas (going back to 2010, when I started logging drives). The more I’ve driven in a place, the brighter the pink lines become.

To accomplish this effect, I set up QGIS to show each of my tracks as a green line at 5% opacity. I also added a green glow with 20% opacity in the layer rendering. Thus, places I’ve only driven once are close to the background color, but as tracks stack on top of each other, they become more and more opaque.

I used Mapbox Studio to create a custom dark basemap showing water and terrain, giving a good contrast to the driving tracks while still showing geological landmarks.

Ohio

Downtown Dayton

Tulsa

Jacksonville

Los Angeles

Seattle

St. Louis

Tucson

Reykjavík

While most of my driving is in the United States, I’ve rented cars in a few other countries, including Iceland.