Journeying Out

What is the safest mode of transportation?

That is a question we often hear and it seems to be asked more when there is a high profile accident like the recent Boeing 737 Max airliner crash in Ethiopia.

We often hear that airline travel is the safest way to travel.

However, a lot depends on how the calculation is done.

Do we consider miles (or kilometers) traveled per fatality?

Do we consider the amount of time that was traveled per fatality?

Or do we consider fatalities per journey?

Most calculations you see measure fatalities per mile traveled.

However, it could be argued that what people are really asking when they pose this question is what are the chances they will embark on a trip and end the journey safely.

Here is a chart that shows the safety of various modes of transportation measured per one billion journeys.

I doubt many are surprised that embarking on a skydiving adventure or getting on a motorcycle are pretty risky.

You probably also knew that getting on a bike was riskier than getting in a car but did you realize it is four times riskier?

Walking is also as risky as getting in a car. After all, those cars are usually in close proximity to where you are walking. However, did you know that getting on a bus is almost 10 times safer than getting in a car?

Based on this measure, air travel is also not nearly as safe as it is normally portrayed. Each time you get on a plane you are actually taking on about three times the risk compared to each time you get in a car.

Air travel involves long distances and few overall passengers so its statistics look much better when calculated on a per mile basis.

Auto travel involves a lot of small trips over short distances with a few passengers each time but spread over trillions of trips.

Bus travel generally involves slightly longer trips than cars but many more passengers on each journey.

To show you how the statistics vary based on the measurement used, here is the same data (excepting skydiving) viewed by journeys, hours and miles.

Credit: Wikipedia

Air travel looks much better when measured by time and it looks fantastic based on miles. There is nothing even close.

Bus and rail look safe no matter how you measure it. Likewise, riding a motorcycle is risky on all counts.

What is the big takeaway from all of us.

I say it a lot in the pages of BeeLine.

"Context is everything when assessing anything."

It applies even when assessing transportation safety.