April 3rd 2024, Release Note: AI Forecast | Events: UK Extreme Weather & Sports Fixtures

Summary

Inclusion of Extreme Weather in AI Forecast

• Enabled by default? Yes
• Set up by customer admin? No
• Enable via support ticket? No
• Affects configuration or data? - Yes

What's Changing?

Addition of extreme weather events affecting UK locations to the AI Forecast engine.

The AI Forecast engine currently provides data for Fourth's WFM Scheduling module. 

Reason for the Change

Weather has always played a crucial role in shaping customer behaviour and can significantly influence sales and operations. It has therefore been a highly requested feature in forecasts. While difficult to model, improvement has been observed through the inclusion of extreme weather events.

Customers Affected

All EMEA customers taking forecasts generated by Fourth's AI Forecast engine into the WFM Scheduling solution.

Release Note Info/Steps

Weather features have been introduced to the AI Forecast engine based on the following extreme weather definitions.

Heatwave

A UK heatwave threshold is met when a location records at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold. The threshold varies by UK county. See the UK temperature threshold map, (Fig.1), below.

Fig.1 - Met Office UK heatwave definition

Snow

Unlike a heatwave, there is no explicit classification of snow. Exploratory data analysis has been used to arrive at "snow types":

The below (Fig.2), is an example of snowy days in the UK in March 2023.

Fig.2 - Example UK snowy days, March 2023

Based on experimentation with historical data, overall the weather model was proven to help in extreme weather cases, especially in cases such as: 

• The first days of heatwave - for example, first week of high temperatures in June 2023; days of high temperatures at the end of summer season
• Unusually low temperatures - for example, December 2022
• Snow events - for example, first half of March 2023

Additional observations:

• Some locations will be impacted more significantly by weather events than others
• External events, e.g. football matches, concerts, etc., may have a competing impact with weather

Inclusion of Sports Fixtures in AI Forecast

• Enabled by default? Yes
• Set up by customer admin? No
• Enable via support ticket? No
• Affects configuration or data? Yes

What's Changing?

Addition of sports fixtures from major leagues affecting UK locations to the Scheduling solution.

Reason for the Change

Sports fixtures have a significant impact on sales for locations in close proximity to venues. Including fixtures from major leagues affecting UK locations in the AI Forecast models improves the accuracy of forecasts for affected locations.

Customers Affected

All EMEA customers taking forecasts generated by Fourth's AI Forecast engine into the Scheduling solution.

Release Note Info

A 4km radius is used to consider the impact on locations in proximity to the event venue. Each location then follows its own pattern based on historical data for similar events.

The impact of that addition of events will vary depending on the type of operations. For some organisations up to a 25% improvement in forecast accuracy has been observed for dates and locations affected by sporting events.

Fixtures from the following leagues have been added to the AI Forecast engine:

Football

• English Premier League
• EFL Championship
• UEFA Champions League
• UEFA Europa League

Rugby

• Six Nations
• Premiership Rugby

Others

• NFL (London series)

Additional leagues and sporting events may be added in future, impact-dependent.