Boeing 787s must be reset every 51 days or 'misleading data' is shown to pilots

Re:Boeing 787s must be reset every 51 days or 'misleading da... by Veserv on Friday October 25, 2024 @02:11AM (#41942665)

Actually, the Shinkansen seems to average ~100 billion passenger-km per year [1] or ~60 billion passenger-miles per year. Using that as a overestimate for the last 60 years, that is a grand total of 3.6 trillion passenger-miles.

US commercial aviation averages ~1 trillion passenger-miles per year [2]. So if we compare the last 4 years of US aviation that is a comparable number of passenger-miles.

Over the last 4 years recorded on this dataset (2019-2022)[3] it looks like there were 5 fatalities total. Over the last 4 years recorded on this dataset (2018-2021)[4] it looks like there were 2 fatalities total.

So, while it does not appear to be safer, it is within a few factors on a passenger-mile basis. Furthermore, there are multiple periods of 4 trillion consecutive passenger-miles where there were 0 recorded accidents. It nowhere near obvious that it is “far safer than air travel could ever claim to be” and certainly a much closer race than you believed given your other assertions.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1262752/japan-jr-high-sp...

[2] https://www.transtats.bts.gov/traffic/

[3] https://www.bts.gov/content/us-air-carrier-safety-data

[4] https://www.airlines.org/dataset/safety-record-of-u-s-air-ca...

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Re:Boeing 787s must be reset every 51 days or 'misleading da... by shiroiushi on Friday October 25, 2024 @02:28AM (#41942750)

That's not exactly a fair comparison, because you're comparing distances traveled, rather than trips taken. Of course planes are going to look good, since they travel much longer distances than cars or trains, and because planes are more likely to have trouble when taking off or landing than any time in-between. It's not like you can just take a commercial airliner flight to go to your local grocery store, even though statistically you're more likely to get killed on that trip than on a cross-continent flight.

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Re:Boeing 787s must be reset every 51 days or 'misleading da... by Veserv on Friday October 25, 2024 @03:55AM (#41943183)

First of all, passenger-distance per event (or its inverse) is the standard metric used when comparing transportation safety. You would be hard-pressed to find any broad, rigorous comparison that does not compare on that metric. It encodes the risk of a trip to a location of a certain distance. It is absolutely a fair comparison.

Second of all, even if we do use your metric which only cares about passenger-trips per event it still does not matter. The Shinkansen has transported ~6.4 billion people since inception. As seen in the second link I provided above, US commercial aviation serves ~900 million passengers per year. So, that is 7 years of US commercial aviation to transport the same number of people the Shinkansen has ever transported. As seen on the third link the last 7 years (2016-2022) had ~6 fatalities and as seen on the fourth link the last 7 years (2015-2021) had 2 fatalities compared to the 1 fatality on the Shinkansen.

Third of all, given that the Shinkansen has transported ~6.4 billion people, but averages 150 million people per year and ~60 billion passenger-miles per year, we can reasonably conclude that I overestimated at ~3.6 trillion passenger-miles and it would likely actually be ~2.4 trillion passenger miles or just 2.5 years of US aviation. From the third link that would be a mere 1 fatality and from the fourth link 0-1 fatalities.

If we extend our analysis to the last decade the third link indicates 15 fatalities over ~10 trillion passenger miles, ~2x the Shinkansen rate, and the fourth link indicates 2 fatalities over ~10 trillion passenger miles, ~50% the Shinkansen rate. Again, broadly comparable, but it is hard to truly tell which one is "safer" than the other. And again, they are clearly in the same ballpark and not dramatically different as you implied.

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