Transportation data science — turning data into evidence that planning agencies can act on.https://unicairn.com/https://unicairn.com/research/aapi-diversity-experiences/https://unicairn.com/research/aapi-diversity-experiences/Digging beneath aggregate Census data to understand how Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander experiences vary across heritages and geographies in the Puget Sound region — and how data analysts should approach small sample sizes in equity research.Wed, 11 May 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/accessibility-metrics-quandary/https://unicairn.com/research/accessibility-metrics-quandary/We care a lot about accessibility in transportation planning — but measuring it in a way that is both easy to understand and statistically rigorous has proven surprisingly difficult. A look at three approaches and their tradeoffs.Fri, 11 Sep 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/av-forecasting-hindsight/https://unicairn.com/research/av-forecasting-hindsight/What it's like to live long enough to revisit your own assumptions. Looking back at AV scenario work from 2014 — what aged well, what didn't, and why returning to old forecasts is one of the ways judgment actually gets built.Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/bicycling-puget-sound/https://unicairn.com/research/bicycling-puget-sound/Data from PSRC's 2014 Regional Travel Study on where people are biking, how bike mode share has grown since 1999, and who is — and isn't — on bikes.Tue, 26 May 2015 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/contradiction-in-planning/https://unicairn.com/research/contradiction-in-planning/So much of planning and modeling work happens inside contradictions. The challenge isn't to eliminate complexity — it's to be honest about it, and keep showing up with curiosity and humility anyway.Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/hts-data-story-collaboration/https://unicairn.com/research/hts-data-story-collaboration/In 2020, the PSRC data team formed a working group to learn how Household Travel Survey data could inform urban planning policy. Here's what we found — on displacement, race, telework, deliveries, and modeling.Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/research-agenda/https://unicairn.com/research/research-agenda/An overview of four connected research threads asking what it actually takes for rigorous analysis to change what gets built — and a fifth thread on evaluation in complex behavioral systems.Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/score-in-planning/https://unicairn.com/research/score-in-planning/C. Thi Nguyên's book on gamification made me think about how planning metrics quietly reshape the world — how congestion relief, VMT reduction, and mode share each capture something real while missing something essential.Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/stanford-ai-panel/https://unicairn.com/research/stanford-ai-panel/Notes from a Hoover Institution panel on AI and the workforce — on what LLMs can't inherit, and why underfunding household travel surveys is a structural risk to equitable AI.Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/transportation-need-30-year/https://unicairn.com/research/transportation-need-30-year/A case for measuring transportation need empirically — through experienced constraints rather than stated preferences — and why a small, stable set of questions could let us ask a simpler, more honest question about whether we're getting better or worse.Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/wfh-forecast-lookback/https://unicairn.com/research/wfh-forecast-lookback/Round 2 of looking back at forecasts I made. The behavioral prediction was largely right. The system-level inference was not — and the difference matters for how we make promises about what planning can achieve.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://unicairn.com/research/womens-travel-needs/https://unicairn.com/research/womens-travel-needs/An analysis of PSRC household travel survey data showing how women's trip patterns, transit use, and travel burdens differ by race, income, and age — and what planning should do about it.Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT