March 24, 2016
Does unionization of ride-sourcing drivers make sense?
Earlier this month, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the City of Seattle over a law passed last year that allows for-hire drivers to form a union. GeekWire explained at that time, The Seattle City Council today unanimously passed legislation that gives Uber, Lyft, taxi and other “for-hire” drivers the right to unionize — the…
March 22, 2016
Can automated vehicles ever be safe?
Increasing safety is one of the main goals of automating vehicles, since human error is identified as the critical factor in 94% of crashes. However, automated vehicles raise different sorts of safety issues. On March 17th, the FBI released an announcement to warn users of the vulnerability of vehicles to remote exploit. Based on this announcement…
March 18, 2016
How many Teslas does it take to make up for a SpaceX launch?
Space exploration is awesome and all, and wouldn’t space tourism be even cooler? Who, given the opportunity, wouldn’t want the chance to view the Earth from space? Commercial spaceflight is in its infancy, but some have speculated that 2016 will be the year space tourism goes mainstream. Mainstream here is relative, of course: moving from…
March 11, 2016
Is wireless electric vehicle charging worth the cost?
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy highlighted recent collaborative efforts between two national labs and Hyundai to develop and demonstrate wireless EV charging technologies. This is just one of many ongoing efforts in the U.S. and around the world to develop this technology, which is expected to make EVs more convenient than they…
March 9, 2016
The arbitrary magic of p < 0.05
A limerick by Roderick Little highlights the importance of recent events in the statistical community: In statistics, one rule did we cherish: P point oh five we publish, else perish! Said Val Johnson, “that’s out of date, our studies don’t replicate P point oh oh five, then null is rubbish!” This hits close to home for us…
March 7, 2016
Economic effects of cities becoming more bike-friendly
In recent years, metropolitan areas world-wide have started to embrace cycling for a variety of reasons; cities want to provide new, viable transit options to reduce vehicular congestion and emissions, improve economic activity, and/or to change the perceived city atmosphere. While all of these have been (and continue to be) valid reasons for policy makers…
March 2, 2016
Interactive visualization: How Seattle commuters link transportation modes
How people commute to work is an important question for cities grappling with congestion, air pollution and other problems caused by growing numbers of vehicles. Motivating commuters to shift from personal cars to other modes is easiest when we first understand what people are currently doing and why. Here we present a visualization of how…
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