Articles tagged as Transportation | Smithsonian Magazine

It just wants to protect soft, perishable humans.

September 1, 2015

A pilot program seeks to save drunken passengers from the dangers of busy train tracks

August 21, 2015

The motor convoy departed D.C. on July 7, 1919.

Cool Finds

How a Hellish Road Trip Revolutionized American Highways

Quicksand, food rationing, and embarrassment may have prompted Ike to push for a better highway system

August 14, 2015

The 7 Line is currently undergoing a system upgrade from one that was installed in the 1930s to one run by computers.

Cool Finds

NYC Subway Technology Goes Way Back…to the 1930s

America’s busiest subway system relies on vintage machines

July 31, 2015

Seven Ways to Revamp Deserted Spaces Under New York City’s Highways and Elevated Trains

The Design Trust for Public Space reimagines neglected areas under the city’s infrastructure

July 17, 2015

The Hyperloop Will Be Only the Latest Innovation That’s Pretty Much a Series of Tubes

The idea of using pneumatics to send objects has been around for ages. But people?

July 2015

Cyclists won't have to look away from the road with head-up display.

Five Tech Ideas That Could Improve City Bike Commuting

A group of London designers imagines Google Glass-like visors and buses that project outlines of their blind spots on the road

June 24, 2015

The project isn’t the enormous high-speed rail alternative that Elon Musk orginialy proposed, but it is close

June 16, 2015

New lanes on London's Regents Canal urge human bikers, runners and walkers to break for ducklings.

Cool Finds

London Adds Special Lanes for Ducks

A city charity has painted pathways for waddlers on Regents Canal walkways

June 1, 2015

Watch As a Real-Life Hoverboard Whirs to Life

At Smithsonian magazine’s Future is Here festival, a few lucky attendees got to take a ride

May 18, 2015

Traffic control centers like this one in Boston—a room cluttered with computer terminals and live video feeds of urban intersections—represent the brain of a traffic system.

Will We Ever Be Able to Make Traffic Disappear?

City engineers make changes in the timing of signals to keep cars moving, but cell phone data and vehicle-to-vehicle communication could ease the task

May 7, 2015

The Freightliner Inspiration is the first commercially-licensed autonomous truck

May 6, 2015

New Research

Harnessing the Power of Peer Pressure Could Help Reduce Traffic

People are more likely to carpool if they think their peers are doing it too

April 28, 2015

More than half of the drivers queried in a 2014 insurance industry survey said their cars had been damaged by potholes.

The War on Potholes Has a New Weapon

Researchers at Northeastern University have outfitted a van with sensors, microphones and cameras that can spot the early stages of potholes

March 30, 2015

In the future, what role will cars play in our lives?

Round Table

Are Cars Driving Into the Sunset?

Our love affair with automobiles is changing in the face of climate change and denser urban living

March 16, 2015

New Research

London’s Congestion Pricing Plan Is Saving Lives

By charging $17.34 for a trip downtown during peak hours, London has reduced traffic fatalities by 40 percent

March 10, 2015

Screen shot of video "Global ship traffic seen from space - FleetMon Satellite AIS and FleetMon Explorer"

Cool Finds

See Shipping Traffic Move Through Straits Around the World

A visualization shows a week’s worth of vessel movement

February 24, 2015

The Zboard 2 is an electric skateboard that can reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour.

This Week in Crowdfunding

Five Wild Ideas: From a Vest for Weight Loss to an Electric Skateboard

Plus, building blocks for children inspired by Archimedes

February 13, 2015

Google's driverless car prototype. Is this the cab of the future?

Cabs of the Future Won’t Have Drivers

Recent moves by Uber and Google may foreshadow a battle over who will control fleets of autonomous cars on city streets

February 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Oil Companies First Built Pipelines in the 1860s; They’ve Been Contested Ever Since

In the 19th century, reformers were happy to have oil come out of the ground—but they objected to the way oil companies controlled it

January 12, 2015