this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
368 points (95.3% liked)

Data is Beautiful

7054 readers
3 users here now

A place to share and discuss visual representations of data: Graphs, charts, maps, etc.

DataIsBeautiful is for visualizations that effectively convey information. Aesthetics are an important part of information visualization, but pretty pictures are not the sole aim of this subreddit.

A place to share and discuss visual representations of data: Graphs, charts, maps, etc.

  A post must be (or contain) a qualifying data visualization.

  Directly link to the original source article of the visualization
    Original source article doesn't mean the original source image. Link to the full page of the source article as a link-type submission.
    If you made the visualization yourself, tag it as [OC]

  [OC] posts must state the data source(s) and tool(s) used in the first top-level comment on their submission.

  DO NOT claim "[OC]" for diagrams that are not yours.

  All diagrams must have at least one computer generated element.

  No reposts of popular posts within 1 month.

  Post titles must describe the data plainly without using sensationalized headlines. Clickbait posts will be removed.

  Posts involving American Politics, or contentious topics in American media, are permissible only on Thursdays (ET).

  Posts involving Personal Data are permissible only on Mondays (ET).

Please read through our FAQ if you are new to posting on DataIsBeautiful. Commenting Rules

Don't be intentionally rude, ever.

Comments should be constructive and related to the visual presented. Special attention is given to root-level comments.

Short comments and low effort replies are automatically removed.

Hate Speech and dogwhistling are not tolerated and will result in an immediate ban.

Personal attacks and rabble-rousing will be removed.

Moderators reserve discretion when issuing bans for inappropriate comments. Bans are also subject to you forfeiting all of your comments in this community.

Originally r/DataisBeautiful

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Go go gadget spitball math!


Sources for average transit mode speed

Source 1:

https://www.gigacalculator.com/articles/what-is-the-average-speed-of-different-modes-of-transportation/

These are the average speeds of some common modes of transportation:

Commercial passenger aircraft: 547 to 575 miles per hour
Private jet: 400 to 711 miles per hour
Europe high-speed rail: 155 to 217 miles per hour
Shinkansen (Japanese bullet trains): 150 to 200 miles per hour
Modern cruise ship: 23 to 27 miles per hour
Bicycle: 10 to 24 miles per hour
Sailboat: 4.5 to 7 miles per hour
Walking: 3 miles per hour

Source 2:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Average-travel-speeds-in-each-survey-year-and-standardized-mode-speed_tbl1_338604360

Source 3:

https://wonderlearning.blog/real-average-speed-us-train-facts

When people think of passenger trains, they often envision swift, efficient travel. However, the operational reality for Amtrak, the primary passenger rail operator in the United States, is far more nuanced. While its locomotives are capable of impressive speeds, the average journey speed for most passengers is surprisingly modest, often hovering between 50 and 60 miles per hour, with long-distance routes averaging even less.


Ok, I'm USAsian, gonna be US-centric, and I'm gonna make some spitball roundings for easier math:

Average Actual Travel Speed:

Motorcycle: 50 mph

Car: 50 mph

Ferry: 25 mph

Train: 50 mph (long/medium distance)

Bus: 25 mph

Subway/Lightrail: 25 mph

Aircraft: 550 mph


Attempt at Conveying Math Proof

So we have:

D = deaths per billion miles. S = speed in miles per hour.

If we first solve for and find the time taken to travel one billion miles at speed S, we would do:

T = 1,000,000,000โ€‹ / S

(T is time in hours)

What we want is D / T

D / T = D / ( 1,000,000,000 / S)

->

D / T = (D * S) / 1,000,000,000

So, that's our rough conversion.


Using (D * S) / 1,000,000,000 , the OP graph becomes:

Deaths per hour of transit, by transit mode, for every billion miles travelled:

Motorcycles: 10,628.5

Car: 364

Ferry: 79.25

Train: 21.5

Subway/Lightrail: 6

Bus: 2.75

Aircraft: 38.5

So... thats basically deaths per billion hours spent using said transit mode.


Notes

You may have noticed that Aircraft are now more dangerous than Buses, Subways, med/long distance Trains, and are only ~2x safer than Ferries, not ~45x times safer, as they are with the OP metric.

One hour of Motorcycles transit, on the other hand, is now ~29x more deadly than an hour of car transit, ~276x more deadly than an hour of aircraft transit...

... as opposed to the OP metric, where a billion miles of motorcycle travel is again ~29x more deadly than a billion miles of car travel, but is ~3039x more deadly than a billion miles of aircraft travel.


tl;dr:

Basically, take travel speed into account, and aircraft become significantly more deadly per hour spent travelling in them, but the ratios between terrestrial and aquatic craft stay pretty similar, due to no one having yet proposed the ikranoplan as a mass transit solution.

(Historically minded readers may note the absence from these numbers of the 'revolutionary' hyperloop, as well as monorail, due to basically not fucking existing in real life.)

You may quibble about the actual average speeds of various transit modes as you please.


More Notes

Probably also worth noting that this is only deaths, not injuries, say, requiring hospitalization.

I imagine doing deaths + serious injuries would also change this graph significantly.

Also also, this doesn't take into account road rage that does not directly involve the vehicle, I don't think.

It does not include injuries or deaths on some form of public or mass transit where say, you get assaulted by another passenger, or something like that.

That could also tweak things, potentially, but I have no strong instinct about if it would really matter, or how... and, you could again do deaths vs deaths + serious injuries.