Determining the Probability and Appropriate Distribution

[minishep]

Hi all, I am taking a Resilient Smart Cities, a 4th year Civil Engineering course at my University.

I have been provided a data set containing duration times power outages. These values range from 15 minutes to 1500 minutes. I cannot, for the life of me, determine the probability of each outage and the appropriate distribution of data. How can I calculate the probability?

Specifically, these questions are asked:

a) What distribution does this data fit best?
b) What are the parameters of the distribution that this data fits best?

Thank you so much,
Alex

 

[Deleted member 4993]

Hi all, I am taking a Resilient Smart Cities, a 4th year Civil Engineering course at my University.

I have been provided a data set containing duration times power outages. These values range from 15 minutes to 1500 minutes. I cannot, for the life of me, determine the probability of each outage and the appropriate distribution of data. How can I calculate the probability?

Specifically, these questions are asked:

a) What distribution does this data fit best?
b) What are the parameters of the distribution that this data fits best?

Thank you so much,
Alex

You did not supply us with a data set - so this is just "pondering" from me!

Did you try to fit Poisson's distribution to your data-set? Try it and tell us what do you find.

 

[tkhunny]

The go-to function for Time Between Failures is the Exponential Function. Sadly, it has only one parameter. This may make dubious the second question which calls for "parameters". Does it mandate more than one parameter or am I being pedantic?

After that, just how fancy do you want to get? There are hazard models, survival models, and on and on. You may have to invent something. As a real Civil Engineer, your regular job may call upon you to create something new. May as well start sooner, rather than later!