The Phantom Jam
Curious Cases
BBC
4.8 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 February 2016
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Drs Rutherford and Fry set out to discover what makes traffic jam. Adam ventures on to the M25 in search of a tailback, and Hannah looks at projects around the world that have attempted to solve the scourge of the traffic jam.
Featuring Neal Harwood from the Transport Research Laboratory and BBC technology reporter, Jane Wakefield. And Masdar City man.
If you have any scientific cases for the team to investigate please email: curiouscases@bbc.co.uk
Presenters: Hannah Fry & Adam Rutherford Producer: Michelle Martin.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the podcast of the curious cases of Rutherford and Fry. |
| 0:03.7 | And this is episode two. |
| 0:05.6 | The curious case of the phantom jam. |
| 0:08.9 | Just fitting on your own sound effects on your voice, that. |
| 0:12.5 | Yes, there's no reverb on that at all. |
| 0:14.9 | This is an interesting one for us. |
| 0:16.2 | Not jam, like you put on toast. |
| 0:17.8 | Exactly, this is the one in which I got to drive my terrible car |
| 0:22.5 | around the M25 while you were still in bed. |
| 0:25.9 | What time in the morning did you have to get up to go traffic hunting |
| 0:29.5 | on the M25? |
| 0:30.5 | It was about 515 and I had to drive out and pick out. |
| 0:34.2 | I lovely producer Michelle who's sitting over there whilst you were |
| 0:37.9 | what do you do lounging around? |
| 0:40.0 | I think just completely asleep for another five hours or so, I'd say. |
| 0:46.0 | Anyway, the phantom jam. |
| 0:47.4 | Yes. |
| 0:53.6 | Today we bring you the curious case of the phantom jam. |
| 0:59.0 | Dear doctors, Rutherford and Fry writes, Mr Matthew Chandler from Derbyshire, |
| 1:03.9 | I travel on the motorway for work and I often find myself sitting in traffic jams for ages, |
| 1:09.0 | thinking that there must be road works or an accident ahead. |
| 1:12.4 | And then suddenly the jam mysteriously disappears to reveal nothing. |
... |
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