Estimating Speeds & Accelerations

• Typical Speeds

  • The table below gives some typical speeds (in m/s) for various everyday scenarios
• Typical Speeds Table

  
• • Note that typical speeds of a person walking, running or cycling depends on a variety of factors, such as:
  • Age
  • Terrain
  • Fitness
  • Distance
  • Similarly, typical speeds of transportation systems like cars or planes will depend on their:
  • Shape
  • Design
  • Cost
  • Purpose
• Estimating Accelerations

  • The acceleration of an object is a measure of how quickly its velocity changes
  • A typical family car, for example, takes around 10 seconds to go from 0 m/s to 27 m/s (roughly 60 mph)
  • This is an acceleration of about 2.7 m/s2
  • The table below gives some other typical accelerations:
• Typical Accelerations Table