How Fast Do Cars Drive on St. George Street?

Peter Leith, 1000743975, PHY151, PRA 0411 Dominique. Collaborator: Justin Lewis After carefully measuring the time it took for 15 cars to travel a pre-determined length of St. George Street, the average speed that the cars travel on said street is 8.61 m/s 1.09 In this Measurement Project, my partner and I decided we wanted to find the average speed of the cars on St. George Street. To do this, my partner stood at the intersection of St. George & Bloor while I waited for the cars at St. George & Harbord Street. To measure the time it took for a car to cross this length, Mr. Lewis and I would stay in contact via a cell phone and he would inform me when a car would enter St. George Street, after the intersection. When that information was relayed, I would start the stopwatch I was carrying and continue timing until the car had reached the St. George and Harbord junction. To get the distance from Bloor to Harbord, Google Maps was used, albeit with a significant error. The day the measurements were taken had light showers throughout; this could have influenced some drivers to lower their speed and as such, affected the results. A problem that was frequently occurring consisted of cars being forced to stop before the Harbord and St. George intersection; these cases were not included in the final data. Below is the data that was collected. Trial # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Time 49.4 0.05 42.4 0.05 39.9 0.05 35.3 0.05 47.2 0.05 41.1 0.05 55.5 0.05 46.4 0.05 40.8 0.05 41.9 0.05 56.4 0.05 50.5 0.05 54.4 0.05 43.9 0.05 51.5 0.05 Distance 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50 400m 50

First of all, finding the average speed requires that the average time be known as well. Adding all of the fifteen trial times together and dividing them by fifteen gives the number 46.44 seconds which is the average time across all of the trials. Then, to calculate the error for the average time the equation ( ) is used, ( ) which generates the number . Furthermore, finding the error for all of the trials, multiplied that by 15, giving the total error of is

or 1.06. To then calculate the average ( )

speed the equation v=d/t where d = 400 and t = 46.44. This gives the average speed to be 8.61 m/s. To determine the of the speed the equation ( ) is y = 50,

used. When using the values z = 8.613264427, x = (32)/4, x = 46.44, and y = 400 in the most recent equation, z = 1.09448.

Given all of this information, the average speed is v = 400m/46.44s which is equal to 8.61 m/s. Taking into consideration the error of 1.09 the final answer to the question, What is the average speed of the cars on St. George street? is 8.61 m/s 1.09