Transportation Statistics and Microsimulation

Numerical Summary Measures    ◾    39

e CV is a measure of relative variation of the data when the measure

of dispersion is relative to the measure of central tendency. One common

interpretation of the CV is that the values in the data set lie, on average,

within approximately CV percent of the mean. e coecient of variation

is especially useful when comparing the variability of the data sets mea-

sured by dierent units because it is unit-free, and so it automatically takes

into account the dierent units in dierent data sets. It can also be esti-

mated as the standard deviation of the log of the data.

e CV is oen used in engineering bec