1 A student is collecting data on traffic arriving at a motorway service station during weekday lunchtimes. The random variable \(X\) denotes the number of cars arriving in a randomly chosen period of ten seconds.

1. State two assumptions necessary if a Poisson distribution is to provide a suitable model for the distribution of \(X\). Comment briefly on whether these assumptions are likely to be valid. The student counts the number of arrivals, \(x\), in each of 100 ten-second periods. The data are shown in the table below.

   \(x\)	0	1	2	3	4	5	\(> 5\)
   Frequency, \(f\)	18	39	20	12	8	3	0

2. Show that the sample mean is 1.62 and calculate the sample variance.
3. Do your calculations in part (ii) support the suggestion that a Poisson distribution is a suitable model for the distribution of \(X\) ? Explain your answer. For the remainder of this question you should assume that \(X\) may be modelled by a Poisson distribution with mean 1.62 .
4. Find \(\mathrm { P } ( X = 2 )\). Comment on your answer in relation to the data in the table.
5. Find the probability that at least ten cars arrive in a period of 50 seconds during weekday lunchtimes.
6. Use a suitable approximating distribution to find the probability that no more than 550 cars arrive in a randomly chosen period of one hour during weekday lunchtimes.