Edexcel S2 — Question 5

Exam BoardEdexcel
ModuleS2 (Statistics 2)
TopicHypothesis test of a Poisson distribution

5. A traffic analyst is interested in the number of heavy lorries passing a certain junction. He counts the numbers of lorries in 100 five-minute intervals, and gets the following results:
Number of lorries in
five-minute interval, \(X\)
01234567
Number of intervals7132519151074
Q. 5 continued on next page ... \section*{STATISTICS 2 (A) TEST PAPER 9 Page 2}
  1. continued ...
    1. Show that the mean of \(X\) is 3 , and find the variance of \(X\).
    2. Give two reasons for thinking that \(X\) can be modelled by a Poisson distribution. (2 marks)
    After a new landfill site has been established nearby, a member of an environmental group notices that 18 lorries pass the junction in a period of 15 minutes. The group claims that this is evidence that the mean number of lorries per five-minute interval has increased.
  2. Test whether the group's claim is valid. Work at the \(5 \%\) significance level, and state your hypotheses clearly.