airplane safety Archives - Resoundingly Human

TSA is intercepting thousands more firearms, but that’s good news!

According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), in 2019, 4,432 firearms were found in carry-on luggage at airport security checkpoints. Dating back to 2014, that number jumps to more than 20,000 firearms and new research strongly suggests that number could actually have been even higher, as even more firearms may not have been detected. For this episode I am joined by Sheldon Jacobson from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose research in the INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, “Using Risk-based Security to Quantify the Number of Firearms Missed at Airport Security Checkpoints,” looks not only at the increased number of firearms…

Tags: airplane safety, firearms, security checkpoints, Sheldon Jacobson, TSA, University of Illinois

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Hate the middle seat? Flying in the pandemic might mean only windows and aisles

In recent episodes of the podcast we have covered a number of ways that O.R. and analytics have helped address the myriad challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how they are helping us map out a return to normal, or in most cases a new normal. With social distancing remaining a key priority, there are so many aspects of our day-to-day lives that will be different for the foreseeable future. And in order to find a way to return to many of these activities, like going to school, getting back to a traditional office environment, and in the…

Tags: airplane safety, Arnie Barnett, COVID-19, middle seat, MIT

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