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Histogram example: waiting times

Explore forty illustrative waiting times, including zeros and a long right tail. Compare bin settings without fitting a probability distribution.

Open this example in the editorStart from scratch

n = 40; 7 bins; Count0510152003.42866.857110.28613.71417.14320.57124Waiting time (minutes)Count
Illustrative waiting times from 0 to 24 minutes; zero is an observed waiting time. Illustrative data.

About this example

Most of these forty waiting times are relatively short, with a few longer waits extending the range. The two zeros are real supplied observations and are included in the first applicable interval.

Try a different bin width to examine how grouping changes the display of the tail. A histogram alone does not establish an exponential or other probability model, and the editor fits none.

The data

Value
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3

…and 25 more rows. Open the example to see all of them.

The editor reports bin boundaries, counts and probability densities; it fits no distribution. Open the example, replace the data with your own, and export the figure as SVG, PDF, PNG or TIFF.

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