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118 Big Data Analytics for Connected Vehicles and Smart Cities What Are Analytics? 119

6.4 What Is an Analytic?

Big data in itself contains little value. The value is there, but it is latent and must
be activated. Some hold a low opinion of the value of data for this reason. It is
important, however, to think of data as a raw material, from which something
very valuable can be created. The real value in collecting and managing big data
lies in the conduct of analytics that turn the data into information, insights, and
actionable strategies. This chapter explores the definition of data analytics. In
particular, it explains the difference between world-class reporting and the use
of analytics. Making use of a sporting analogy, world-class reporting will only
ever make you a well-informed spectator at a football match, whereas analytics
can give you the power to change the performance of the team, just like a coach.
Examples of analytics that have been applied to transportation and to business
enterprises beyond transportation will be explained later in Section 6.6.
A more formal definition of the term analytic can be found in the Oxford
English Dictionary [1], in which analytic has the following meanings:

• “The branch of logic which deals with analysis (see analytics n. 1a)
(obs.); an analytical system, method, or approach; an analysis.”
• “Of, relating to, or in accordance with analysis or analytics; consist-
ing in, or distinguished by, the resolution of compounds into their ele-
ments.”
• “Of a judgment, statement, proposition, etc.: expressing no more in the
predicate than is contained in the concept of the subject; true simply
in virtue of its meaning or its logical form; having the property that its
denial is self-contradictory.”
• “Forming part of mathematical analysis (analysis n. 5); relating to or
involving mathematical analysis.”
• “Of a function: having derivatives of all orders at every point of its do-
main (or a specified part of its domain); locally representable by a power
series.”
• “That analyses or has a tendency to analyse; that is concerned with or
characterized by the use of analysis.”
• “Characterized by the use of separate words (auxiliaries, prepositions,
etc.) rather than inflections to express syntactical relationship.”

These definitions indicate that the word analytic can mean a system and
method or approach to analysis, fundamental truths, or a mathematical analy-
sis and breaking down of something into its individual elements. From a data
perspective, an analytic provides insight and understanding that can be used to