The classifier algorithm used was a gradient boosting classifer.
The metric used to measure performance was Area Under the ROC Curve - AUC score. An AUC Score of 0.814 was acheived on the test dataset.
This project is based on a data challenge from the Michigan Data Science Team (MDST).
The Michigan Data Science Team (MDST) and the Michigan Student Symposium for Interdisciplinary Statistical Sciences (MSSISS) have partnered with the City of Detroit to help solve one of the most pressing problems facing Detroit - blight. Blight violations are issued by the city to individuals who allow their properties to remain in a deteriorated condition. Every year, the city of Detroit issues millions of dollars in fines to residents and every year, many of these fines remain unpaid. Enforcing unpaid blight fines is a costly and tedious process, so the city wants to know: how can we increase blight ticket compliance?
The first step in answering this question is understanding when and why a resident might fail to comply with a blight ticket. This is where predictive modeling comes in. The project aims to predict whether a given blight ticket will be paid on time.
All data is available through the Detroit Open Data Portal. The following related datasets were used to understand and determine the features used for classification :
- Building Permits
- Trades Permits
- Improve Detroit: Submitted Issues
- DPD: Citizen Complaints
- Parcel Map
Fields from all the above mentioned datasets were merged to form two data files - train.csv and test.csv. Each row in these two files corresponds to a single blight ticket, and includes information about when, why, and to whom each ticket was issued. The target variable is compliance, which is True if the ticket was paid early, on time, or within one month of the hearing data, False if the ticket was paid after the hearing date or not at all, and Null if the violator was found not responsible. Compliance, as well as a handful of other variables that will not be available at test-time, are only included in train.csv.
Note: All tickets where the violators were found not responsible are not considered during evaluation. They are included in the training set as an additional source of data for visualization, and to enable unsupervised and semi-supervised approaches. However, they are not included in the test set.
File descriptions
train.csv - the training set (all tickets issued 2004-2011)
test.csv - the test set (all tickets issued 2012-2016)
addresses.csv & latlons.csv - mapping from ticket id to addresses, and from addresses to lat/lon coordinates.
Note: misspelled addresses may be incorrectly geolocated.
Data fields
train.csv & test.csv
ticket_id - unique identifier for tickets
agency_name - Agency that issued the ticket
inspector_name - Name of inspector that issued the ticket
violator_name - Name of the person/organization that the ticket was issued to
violation_street_number, violation_street_name, violation_zip_code - Address where the violation occurred
mailing_address_str_number, mailing_address_str_name, city, state, zip_code, non_us_str_code, country - Mailing address of the violator
ticket_issued_date - Date and time the ticket was issued
hearing_date - Date and time the violator's hearing was scheduled
violation_code, violation_description - Type of violation
disposition - Judgment and judgement type
fine_amount - Violation fine amount, excluding fees
admin_fee - $20 fee assigned to responsible judgments
state_fee - $10 fee assigned to responsible judgments
late_fee - 10% fee assigned to responsible judgments
discount_amount - discount applied, if any
clean_up_cost - DPW clean-up or graffiti removal cost
judgment_amount - Sum of all fines and fees
grafitti_status - Flag for graffiti violations
train.csv only
payment_amount - Amount paid, if any
payment_date - Date payment was made, if it was received
payment_status - Current payment status as of Feb 1 2017
balance_due - Fines and fees still owed
collection_status - Flag for payments in collections
compliance [target variable for prediction]
Null = Not responsible
0 = Responsible, non-compliant
1 = Responsible, compliant
compliance_detail - More information on why each ticket was marked compliant or non-compliant