A new study by researchers from MIT and elsewhere has found that “most drivers are likely to multitask and get distracted if their vehicles are equipped with partial automation software,” reports William Gavin for Quartz. The researchers “studied how drivers with cars that have the technology behaved after it was enabled,” explains Gavin.
Alum Brian Ketcham, “an engineer and influential environmentalist who promoted mass transit and favored bridge tolls, bus lanes, limits on parking and other curbs on vehicular traffic,” has died at age 85, reports Sam Roberts for The New York Times. As a long-time city official and consultant, “no one in New York City or anywhere accomplished as much as Brian in reducing the societal harms of urban auto use,” says former city environmental analyst Charles Komanoff.
A Nature editorial discusses the live music industry’s increasing commitment to sustainability, going beyond actions such as bottle recycling to addressing band travel, equipment shipping and set construction. Researchers from MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative have “undertaken a project co-funded by the Warner Music Group, Live Nation and Coldplay to analyze the carbon footprint of the live music industry, initially in the United Kingdom and United States, and suggest practical mitigating measures.”
A new paper by MIT researchers has found that “aviation safety is improving by the decade,” reports Monica Pitrelli for CNBC. The paper “states that the risk of dying on a commercial flight globally was 1 per 13.7 million passenger boardings from 2018 to 2022 — a significant improvement from the decade before, and far cry from the one death for every 350,000 boardings that occurred between 1968-1977,” explains Pitrelli.
Prof. Jessika Trancik speaks with New York Times reporter Austyn Gaffney about new research detailing the true impact of climate policies designed to reduce emissions. “Many of the technological tools that are needed to address climate change are now available,” says Trancik. “And ready to be adopted at scale because of a host of different types of policies that came before.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that commercial air travel continues to get safer, with the risk of a fatality 1 per every 13.7 million passenger boardings globally in the 2018 to 2022 period, reports Brittany Anas for Forbes. “Researchers explain that this trend in safer flights can be understood through ‘Moore’s Law,’ which is the observation that innovators find ways to double computing power of chips every roughly 18 months,” Anas writes. “However, in this case, the MIT team points out, commercial travel has become almost twice as safe in each decade since the late 1960s.”
A new study by MIT researchers finds that air travel has never been safer, with the fatality rate falling to 1 per every 13.7 million passenger boardings globally in the 2018-2022 period, reports Agence France-Presse. Prof. Arnold Barnett compared aviation safety increases to "'Moore's Law,’ the famous prediction by Intel founder Gordon Moore that the computing power of chips doubles roughly every 18 months. From 1978-1987 the risk of dying was 1 per 750,000 boarding passengers; from 1988-1997 it was 1 per 1.3 million; and in 1998-2007, 1 per 2.7 million.”
Writing for Bloomberg, David Zipper, a senior fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative, argues that New York’s halted congestion pricing plan will deprive the state’s MTA of much needed revenue, underfunding maintenance and visible enhancement projects. “New York’s congestion pricing plan would have covered more than half the MTA’s $28 billion capital budget,” he explains. “For the moment, the MTA’s board must strike a precarious balance between politicians’ desire for splashy construction projects and the urgent but hidden needs for system upgrades.”
Prof. Nancy Rose speaks with NPR’s Planet Money hosts Erika Beras and Kenny Malone about the impact of airline deregulation and the aircraft industry. “We need these kind of smaller carriers who want to grow, who want to go in and take share from the majors because they're the ones that are keeping the price pressure on,” says Rose.
Research Scientist Jim Aloisi, director of the MIT Transit Research Consortium, joins WBUR’s Radio Boston to discuss the indefinite pause on New York’s congestion pricing program. The main failure recently seen, Aloisi explains, is lack of communication about congestion pricing, which fails to “let people understand how flexible and therefore fair and equitable this pricing tool can be, if we want it to be.”
Writing for Climatewire, Scott Waldman interviews experts about New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to pause congestion pricing. David Zipper, a senior fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative, says “I think other cities will keep looking at it no matter what happens in New York.” He adds: “But I would say that, if congestion pricing goes forward in New York, that can basically turbocharge efforts in other cities to adopt it.”
Writing for The Boston Globe, Research Scientist James Aloisi, director of the MIT Transit Research Consortium, highlights the current difficulties facing transportation funding, arguing for congestion pricing as a “highly agile and strategic revenue tool.” "Congestion pricing is one of the most feasible approaches to replacing the gas tax," writes Aloisi, "and providing a stable, fair, and equitable approach to raising revenue for both transit and roadways."
Writing for Bloomberg, David Zipper, a senior fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative, discusses new parking fees based on vehicle weight established in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, a borough in the city of Montreal, to combat congestion and carbon emissions. “Paying more for parking may seem like a modest step, but it sends a clear message about the societal costs that oversized vehicles impose on everyone else,” writes Zipper.
An analysis by The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein notes despite Republican resistance to electric vehicles, many new production facilities are located in GOP-represented states. MIT Innovation Fellow Brian Deese explains EV companies are simply seeking space and nearby manufacturing and construction capacity, but said “it’s pretty hard to think of a technology where there was a cheaper, better technology to solve a consumer need and consumers prioritized a cultural or political patina over lower costs and higher quality.”
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that “showing AI-generated images of a less car-reliant American city boosted support for sustainable transportation policies,” reports Linda Poon for Bloomberg. “Let’s help them imagine what it would actually be like to live in a car-less neighborhood, and a car-less city,” says postdoctoral associate Rachit Dubey.