Day 6

Today I worked on the next part of the ArcGIS project. In Excel I analyzed the data from the different routes according to the categories that Xiang and Jesus gave us. For each route, we broke down the risk based on type of tank car (Isotainer or Tank-car 1) and based on different ranges of risk levels. All of these calculations allow the data to be more easily interpreted and presentable to a company. It's very satisfying to see the ultimate result of all of the work that we've done. Not surprisingly, for all 6 routes and both types of tank cars,  approximately 75% of the risk fell between 1.0E-04 and 1.0E-06, the middle two levels of risk. This is to be expected; it basically is saying that for most of the route there is not a great deal of risk, but there is a non-negligible amount of risk involved.

After I compared and checked my Excel sheets with Manu, I continued to read more about the ValuJet accident, reading the NTSB accident report on it. After searching through many articles, it's apparent to me that this is the most high profile hazmat accident in aviation history thus far. One recent accident occurred in 2010, when UPS flight #6 crashed. There were a large number of lithium-ion batteries on board the plane, and there were other instances I've read about of lithium batteries catching on fire. This is potentially an area that I can look to further when I do my own project.