The local police department must write,on average,5 tickets a day to keep department revenues at budgeted levels.Suppose the number of tickets written per day follows a Poisson distribution with a mean of 6.5 tickets per day.Interpret the value of the mean.
A)Half of the days have less than 6.5 tickets written and half of the days have more than 6.5 tickets written.
B)If we sampled all days,the arithmetic average or expected number of tickets written would be 6.5 tickets per day.
C)The number of tickets that is written most often is 6.5 tickets per day.
D)The mean has no interpretation since 0.5 tickets can never be written.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The mean of 6.5 tickets per day represents the expected or average number of tickets that would be written per day if we observed all days over a long period of time. It does not mean that exactly 6.5 tickets would be written every day or that the number of tickets written most often is 6.5.

The Local Police Department Must Write,on Average,5 Tickets a Day