A Surprisingly High Number of Commuters Would Prefer Not to Teleport to Work

You don't have to be a Star Trek fan to be borderline obsessed with the idea of teleportation. You just have to want to be somewhere you're not, instantly (and preferably with all your DNA molecules and vital organs intact). As a culture, we're so excited by the prospect of teleportation that we latch onto every bite of news that seems to be telling us there's a chance.

There isn't a chance. (Sorry.) But that's besides the point for the "teleportation test" co-developed by Georgia Tech transportation scholar Patricia Mokhtarian more than a decade ago. In 2001, Mokhtarian and collaborator Ilan Salomon conceived the test as a "whimsical but potentially useful" tool to understanding personal travel preferences: