1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:03,720 Take one. 2 00:00:03,720 --> 00:00:05,320 Shall we? 3 00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:07,160 Take a minute... 4 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:10,440 ..look around you. 5 00:00:10,440 --> 00:00:12,600 You probably never think about it, 6 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:16,520 but we are living in a time of incredible ingenuity. 7 00:00:16,520 --> 00:00:21,080 Our lives are filled with fiendishly clever bits of tech that basically 8 00:00:21,080 --> 00:00:23,880 make the modern world tick. 9 00:00:23,880 --> 00:00:28,920 The problem is, we're now so used to these devices 10 00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:32,680 that we have forgotten to remember how clever they are. 11 00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:35,160 I don't have an answer for that. 12 00:00:35,160 --> 00:00:39,920 I'm Professor Hannah Fry, your hammer-wielding 13 00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:42,840 tech-curious tour guide... 14 00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:47,800 Woo! ..to the secret genius of everyday objects. 15 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:50,400 There is one law of physics that you need to know. 16 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:52,200 In each episode... 17 00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,000 Whoa! 18 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:58,360 ..I will take one seemingly ordinary item... 19 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:01,440 Woo! Immediately smoking. 20 00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:07,320 ..and I'll look at it in frankly... Yeah! ..obscene detail... 21 00:01:07,320 --> 00:01:09,120 Two googly eyes. 22 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:12,040 It has 180 degree view. 23 00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:15,560 ..meet the people who helped make it... 24 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:18,000 This is the very first air fryer. 25 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,720 ..and follow the twisty-turny journey through the history 26 00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:23,080 of its invention. 27 00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:27,000 If you overshoot the turning point, don't try to do this. 28 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,040 It's wobbly, Johnny! Yeah, it's just wind. 29 00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:36,040 Buckle up, folks, this time it's the motorway. 30 00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:41,000 OK, I know that motorways get a bit of a bad rep. 31 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:44,000 They're boring, they're frustrating. 32 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:46,440 But if you put aside the road rage... 33 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,120 What's he doing in that lane?! Do you know what I mean?! 34 00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:53,720 ..roadworks and roadside rescues, 35 00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:58,360 you have to admit that they have also made our lives so much easier. 36 00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:01,080 They are the backbone of the country, 37 00:02:01,080 --> 00:02:04,080 a way to get from A to B as fast as possible, 38 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:08,600 and without them, I mean, the whole country would just grind to a halt. 39 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:12,720 Love them or hate them, without them we'd probably be lost. 40 00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:19,160 So, how did some wild swimming in the 1950s... 41 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:21,040 It's cold! 42 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:22,960 OK, I'm in! 43 00:02:22,960 --> 00:02:25,160 ..a Formula 1 legend... 44 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:26,960 I'm off the ground completely, 45 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:31,000 probably doing 180 mile an hour and there's no barrier. 46 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:35,040 ..and a 1960s road sign revolution... 47 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:39,000 The signs that existed, they were absolutely chaotic. 48 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:40,960 They just wouldn't have worked. 49 00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:43,400 ..give us the modern motorway. 50 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:46,520 You know how people really hate it when people sit in the middle 51 00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:49,960 lane of the motorway? Yep... 52 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:51,080 Guilty. 53 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:04,960 The best way to see our motorways in action is from the air. 54 00:03:06,640 --> 00:03:09,240 "We're going to look at motorways from above," they said. 55 00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:12,960 "Great," I said, "from a helicopter?" "No, from a drone." 56 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:17,760 Andrew Marr got a helicopter! 57 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:24,400 Given the eco-impact of our traffic-laden motorways, 58 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,640 maybe I can do without a chopper. 59 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:32,080 From up here, you can see just how much we rely 60 00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:34,200 on these high-speed roads. 61 00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:37,560 Have a look here... 62 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,760 Can you see how the traffic's starting to build up? 63 00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:46,040 And if you look at the volume of traffic and trucks and caravans, 64 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:50,040 I mean, everything running along this road, all of those trucks 65 00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:52,120 carrying all these goods... 66 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:54,480 From the almost 200 billion tonnes 67 00:03:54,480 --> 00:03:58,040 of goods they carry each year to the four million journeys 68 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:00,000 we make on them every day. 69 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:04,280 This is not just a road, this is the artery of Britain. 70 00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:12,320 We're going to pull apart the motorway and look at everything 71 00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:15,240 from crash barriers to cat's eyes. 72 00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:20,280 But we're starting with the bit that can make your daily commute 73 00:04:20,280 --> 00:04:25,440 pure pleasure or total Carmageddon. It's the road. 74 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:36,040 There are 2,300 miles of this stuff, 75 00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:40,560 layers of tarmac, gravel and great history that have helped 76 00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:44,360 shape our motorway system and the people who built it, 77 00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:46,800 including this one, the M25. 78 00:04:49,640 --> 00:04:52,240 It's quite an Irish history to the M25. 79 00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:55,040 A lot of the tarmac was laid by Irish workers, 80 00:04:55,040 --> 00:04:57,840 including Bob Geldof. 81 00:04:57,840 --> 00:05:00,960 I think he tries to claim that where the M25 meets the M23 82 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:02,440 is Geldof's Corner. 83 00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:05,480 I'll let you decide if you want to call it that. 84 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:08,360 I'll tell you why I don't like Mondays, Bob. 85 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:10,640 Rush hour in your motorway for a start. 86 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:15,040 But since Bob's days, our motorways have gone super high-tech 87 00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:17,200 to try and ease our road rage. 88 00:05:18,280 --> 00:05:22,040 There is an enormous amount of completely invisible technology 89 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:23,880 that's going on behind the scenes 90 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:27,760 that is essential to keep everybody moving. 91 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:30,640 Take these innocuous-looking squares. 92 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:35,360 They are actually induction loops, quietly monitoring traffic levels. 93 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:40,120 When you drive over one, it disturbs the magnetic field of a copper coil 94 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:44,280 buried below and pings a signal to these guys. 95 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:47,360 They're holding traffic. 96 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:50,080 The whole lane? Wow! 97 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:52,640 They closed the whole motorway! 98 00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:54,880 They've closed the whole motorway! 99 00:05:56,720 --> 00:06:00,280 Hidden off Junction 6 is the National Highways control room 100 00:06:00,280 --> 00:06:03,200 for the M25, our busiest motorway. 101 00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:09,040 These officers use any means necessary to fight the jams, 102 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:11,560 like the MI5 of the M25. 103 00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:16,360 It looks like that's going to be cleared fairly soon though. 104 00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:19,680 Running the place today is Jules Thompson. 105 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:26,040 We do Junction 30, around Junction 14 on the M25, 106 00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:29,600 what we call the smiley side of the M25. The smiley side. 107 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:32,160 Smiley side... Is the north the unhappy side? 108 00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:33,680 I couldn't comment! 109 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:38,320 Sensors and radar systems 110 00:06:38,320 --> 00:06:43,440 tell them the volume and flow of traffic, and CCTV gives them eyes 111 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:46,560 on the road to pinpoint the problem. 112 00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:50,400 It's all part of a system known as MIDAS. 113 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:55,240 MIDAS is our Motorway Incident Detection Automated System. 114 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:58,000 And rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Absolutely. 115 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:00,680 Yeah. Think I'll stick to the acronym. 116 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:06,240 Now, before you ask, there is one area that Jules and the MIDAS system 117 00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:08,560 don't get involved in. 118 00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:11,000 We get information on speed, but not speed 119 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:12,840 camera-ey-type information. 120 00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:14,560 So you can't tell if people are speeding. 121 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:16,080 No, no, no. That's a police matter. 122 00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:18,120 Does that mean that sometimes you speed on the motorway? 123 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:20,720 No. Never speed on the motorway. Absolutely not. 124 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:21,840 What's going on there? 125 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:25,280 That's our stationary vehicle detection system going off. 126 00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:28,000 Third RTC in that roadworks section. 127 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:29,720 So where the ambulance is side on, 128 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:33,240 there's a car just in front of it in the central rez. 129 00:07:33,240 --> 00:07:36,880 MIDAS has alerted them to a crash that has blocked a lane 130 00:07:36,880 --> 00:07:39,600 and slowed traffic to a crawl. 131 00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:45,960 That's quite a big queue now. How far back is that going? 132 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:49,400 It's about 1.5km. Five minutes in and we're at 1.5km. 133 00:07:49,400 --> 00:07:52,960 It's really astonishing just how quickly 134 00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:55,560 this is causing problems. 135 00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:58,640 Jules sends an officer to clear the crash site. 136 00:07:58,640 --> 00:08:04,000 Stopped traffic costs the UK economy tens of millions of pounds a day, 137 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:06,680 so every minute counts. 138 00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:08,720 Traffic officers on scene. 139 00:08:08,720 --> 00:08:12,280 These are the people that are out of the vehicle. 140 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:13,480 Now being cleared, 141 00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:17,680 and you can see the traffic's moving through in all lanes. 142 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:20,400 With the car cleared, you'd think that would be problem 143 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:22,440 solved, wouldn't you? 144 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:25,400 But stalled traffic takes a while to move, 145 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:27,840 so the tailback is still growing. 146 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:33,560 MIDAS steps in, lowering the speed limit to 50 for the cars 147 00:08:33,560 --> 00:08:36,920 behind that aren't yet caught in the jam. 148 00:08:36,920 --> 00:08:40,400 It's detecting the queue forming. It is setting the signs for us. 149 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:46,320 I mean, it feels like it shouldn't work, right? 150 00:08:46,320 --> 00:08:49,960 Slow things down to get them through faster? 151 00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:51,280 Well, let's see. 152 00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:58,080 I have a nice model version of a motorway. 153 00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:01,280 The key thing that you need to know about traffic is that it's all 154 00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:05,200 about the relationship between speed and density. 155 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:07,960 Speed? That's how fast the cars are going. 156 00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:11,080 And density is if you took a photograph 157 00:09:11,080 --> 00:09:13,880 from above a stretch of motorway, 158 00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:15,000 the density would be 159 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:19,280 how many cars would be pictured in that that image. 160 00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:23,280 OK, it's early morning before rush hour. 161 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:25,560 Everyone's travelling at 70mph. 162 00:09:25,560 --> 00:09:29,600 This is like ideal motorway driving conditions. 163 00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:32,640 Bit of 6 Music. Delightful! 164 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:36,480 Now, when there aren't many cars on the roads, there's lots of space 165 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:39,600 between them and they rarely affect each other. 166 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:42,880 Density is low. Traffic can flow well. 167 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:47,880 Now imagine it gets a little bit later on in the morning. 168 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:50,200 The dreaded rush hour has begun. 169 00:09:51,280 --> 00:09:54,360 There are more and more cars that are joining the motorway. 170 00:09:54,360 --> 00:09:57,040 But there comes a critical point, 171 00:09:57,040 --> 00:10:00,240 when the density of cars is so high that traffic 172 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:02,600 can no longer flow freely. 173 00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:06,840 Too many cars and they can get in each other's way... 174 00:10:06,840 --> 00:10:08,240 All right, mate, calm down. 175 00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:11,240 ..slowing up everyone behind them. 176 00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:15,280 This can quickly escalate into a full blown traffic jam. 177 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:22,520 By this point, it's game over, you know? 178 00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:24,920 There's not really anything that you can do. 179 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:29,000 Everybody's just got to wait their turn to get out of it. 180 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:33,600 But for these vehicles yet to approach, we can stop the jam 181 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:35,280 from spreading to them. 182 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:40,040 And the way that you can do that is by using those gantries 183 00:10:40,040 --> 00:10:41,360 over the motorway. 184 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:46,400 If you change the speed limit for the cars back there, 185 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:49,720 just knock it back a little bit to 50... 186 00:10:49,720 --> 00:10:53,880 At this slower speed, everyone has a bit more time and space to pass 187 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:56,480 through without getting in the way of cars around them. 188 00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:58,960 Traffic can again flow smoothly. 189 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:03,880 Counterintuitively, because you have reduced the speed, 190 00:11:03,880 --> 00:11:08,240 you've also increased the flow, 191 00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:11,120 which means that more cars 192 00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:14,040 can get through than before. 193 00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:21,840 The challenge of keeping us all moving began with the mass 194 00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:23,800 production of the motorcar. 195 00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:30,720 By the early 20th century, the age of the automobile 196 00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:33,600 is clogging our roads with cars, 197 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:36,720 and so a new kind of road starts to appear. 198 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:43,720 In Italy, Mussolini builds 500 miles of fascist fast lanes to show 199 00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:45,320 off his modern regime. 200 00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:49,560 The Germans follow with the first autobahns, 201 00:11:49,560 --> 00:11:52,440 finished just in time to invade Austria. 202 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:59,120 Not to be outdone, the Yanks build 40,000 miles of high-speed roads 203 00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:03,200 they call highways, a symbol of their love affair with the car 204 00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:04,840 and cheap oil. 205 00:12:04,840 --> 00:12:09,320 ADVERT: This is the American dream of freedom on wheels. 206 00:12:10,520 --> 00:12:12,400 And the first UK motorway... 207 00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:16,080 Well, we get the exotically named Preston Bypass. 208 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:17,720 Lucky us! 209 00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:22,600 But despite the new roads, the jams didn't stop, much to the despair 210 00:12:22,600 --> 00:12:23,960 of the authorities. 211 00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:27,960 If only motorists will just take the trouble and drive at the right 212 00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:30,640 speed for their particular vehicle. 213 00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:34,160 This is known as Braess's paradox, after German 214 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:36,040 mathematician Dietrich Brace. 215 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:39,040 He theorised that as new lanes opened, human nature 216 00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:42,560 being what it was, more people will choose these faster roads, 217 00:12:42,560 --> 00:12:45,840 eventually clogging them up too and increasing 218 00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:47,920 overall journey times. 219 00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:52,880 Luckily, another mathematician was about to come up with a theory 220 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,920 on traffic that was way ahead of its time. 221 00:13:00,560 --> 00:13:04,760 The year is 1955, and a mathematician by the name 222 00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:09,960 of James Lighthill is out on one of his regular wild swims. 223 00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:12,520 I don't belong in this environment! 224 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:15,280 This is outside of my natural habitat! 225 00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:19,520 Oh, my God, it's cold! 226 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:20,960 It's cold! 227 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:22,600 It's cold. 228 00:13:22,600 --> 00:13:25,040 OK, I'm in. 229 00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:29,080 Unlike me, he took pleasure in plunging into cold water. 230 00:13:30,240 --> 00:13:33,520 You might not have heard of him, but he's a bit of a legend 231 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:34,680 in the maths world... 232 00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:38,560 Yes, I think that would be going a bit far 233 00:13:38,560 --> 00:13:39,760 ..because he was 234 00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:44,200 one of the best people who's ever lived at understanding 235 00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:47,200 the equations of how fluids flow. 236 00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:50,880 And he was so good at this at, like, intuitively knowing what fluids 237 00:13:50,880 --> 00:13:54,800 would do as they went through bottlenecks or cracks and gullies. 238 00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:58,440 Can you give me an example of a differential equation in words? 239 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:02,760 Well, quite a good example is the well-known wave equation 240 00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:08,760 (d2y/dx2) = (1/c2)(d2y/dt2) 241 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:10,920 Oh, steady on, James. 242 00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:13,560 You're getting me all Pi R2. 243 00:14:13,560 --> 00:14:17,040 So one day, he had this brainwave. 244 00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:20,480 He was like, "Maybe we've been thinking about traffic in completely 245 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:24,840 "the wrong way, because traffic flows like fluids do 246 00:14:24,840 --> 00:14:27,000 "and, OK, traffic might be made of cars, but fluids 247 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:28,560 "are made of particles. 248 00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:31,320 "So, if they are similar, 249 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,560 "can you use the equations of fluid flow 250 00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:41,240 "to predict how traffic will move and maybe stop traffic jams?" 251 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:46,960 That was really obvious that I was standing there, wasn't it? I mean... 252 00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:53,800 In the same way, just one pebble can ripple outwards 253 00:14:53,800 --> 00:14:55,560 to affect water far away. 254 00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:59,480 Maybe the same thing was happening on our roads. 255 00:15:01,640 --> 00:15:04,800 It became clear that most traffic jams aren't caused by people 256 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:06,480 having crashes or breaking down. 257 00:15:06,480 --> 00:15:09,960 They're caused by really trivial things. 258 00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:14,440 Like a driver braking or changing lanes. 259 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,520 Even in the absence of a clear cause 260 00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:18,640 like an accident or roadworks... 261 00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:21,560 All of those little things put together, they add 262 00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:25,880 up and they ripple outwards exactly like a water wave. 263 00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:33,240 Allow me to demonstrate in real time and not in a wet suit. 264 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:37,000 Remember that drone's eye view of the M25 earlier? 265 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:39,160 Let's take another look at it. 266 00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:46,160 OK, do you see this? 267 00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:49,880 So, on the traffic that's coming this way, it's slowed 268 00:15:49,880 --> 00:15:55,120 right down almost to a crawl, and there's no obstruction anywhere. 269 00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:58,840 This is just people braking and then people behind them braking 270 00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:01,960 and people behind them braking and so on, and so on, and so on. 271 00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:04,640 It's like this ripple effect that travels backwards 272 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:06,960 through the field of traffic, and it's like... 273 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:10,400 They've actually stopped! They've stopped! 274 00:16:10,400 --> 00:16:12,400 That's extraordinary! 275 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:16,440 And it's for no reason other than the cumulative effect 276 00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:17,840 of human error. 277 00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:19,880 This is a phantom traffic jam. 278 00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:22,720 This is cars that are stopping without there ever 279 00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:24,240 being an obstruction. 280 00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:30,680 Lighthill realised that if everyone drove at a constant speed, 281 00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:35,400 these phantom jams would disappear and we'd get places quicker. 282 00:16:35,400 --> 00:16:39,480 And so the traffic flow problem was solved, right? 283 00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:40,760 Wrong. 284 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:43,760 Look out, there, you with the ladder! 285 00:16:43,760 --> 00:16:46,880 Those policy makers don't listen to maths, 286 00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:49,160 even excellent maths. 287 00:16:49,160 --> 00:16:53,400 And so road building was seen as the fix to the flow problem. 288 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:06,440 By the 1960s, the UK had entered a motorway building frenzy. 289 00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:11,960 This motorway starts a new era in road travel. 290 00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:15,560 We were tarmacking the countryside faster than you could say 291 00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:17,280 Braess's paradox. 292 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:22,800 And by the 1970s, the network stretched to over 1,000 miles. 293 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:27,840 By the 1990s, our roads were clogged with more cars than ever. 294 00:17:27,840 --> 00:17:30,760 NEWS REPORT: The motorway is already a victim of its own success, 295 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:34,000 because of the problems of severe congestion. 296 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:39,480 But over in the world of academia, new research was bringing 297 00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,040 Lighthill's work back into the spotlight. 298 00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:48,520 Chaos theory looked at how trivial actions can have big consequences. 299 00:17:49,480 --> 00:17:53,760 A butterfly flapping its wings in Outer Mongolia this month 300 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:57,280 could affect the weather patterns that we experience 301 00:17:57,280 --> 00:17:59,040 over Britain next month. 302 00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:06,480 There were clear parallels with Lighthill's work on traffic jams 303 00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:10,360 and now advances in supercomputers and early AI 304 00:18:10,360 --> 00:18:14,120 meant they could model his theories and prove that slowing 305 00:18:14,120 --> 00:18:17,400 traffic down to keep it flowing worked. 306 00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:22,120 And so in the mid-1990s, his calculations were woven 307 00:18:22,120 --> 00:18:25,320 into a new intelligent traffic flow system... 308 00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:30,720 ..which brings us back to where we started - MIDAS. 309 00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:32,200 It works. 310 00:18:32,200 --> 00:18:34,360 By slowing the traffic down on approach, 311 00:18:34,360 --> 00:18:36,920 it just helps to keep it moving and to avoid getting 312 00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:39,760 to that stop-start, stop-start scenario. 313 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:43,840 It feels like there's a lesson here. Always trust the mathematicians. 314 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:54,640 Motorways let us travel fast, but with speed comes danger. 315 00:18:56,120 --> 00:18:59,240 Our next component is the part of the motorway that could 316 00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:02,120 save your life in an accident. 317 00:19:02,120 --> 00:19:03,960 It's the crash barrier. 318 00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:15,600 This is designed to absorb the impact and engine of the car 319 00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,080 and keep the occupants safe. 320 00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:21,800 That is Matt Harriman from crash barrier experts 321 00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:23,320 Hill and Smith. 322 00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:29,600 Wow... Wow! 323 00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:33,400 I mean, that whole thing is over in about two seconds. 324 00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:37,240 He spends his time crashing vehicles, so you don't have to... 325 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:43,480 ..to test the crash barrier used on most motorways. 326 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:48,640 If that hadn't been there, I mean, that's really serious, 327 00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:51,320 across three lanes of traffic. Exactly, yes. 328 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:54,240 It's all about saving the drivers. 329 00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:56,160 It's called an Armco barrier, 330 00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:59,440 after the American Rolling Mill Company that invented it, 331 00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:03,440 and it has to withstand everything our motorways can throw at it. 332 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:07,640 We test a small car, so 900kg, 333 00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:12,320 like a Mini, all the way up to kind of coaches and lorries. 334 00:20:12,320 --> 00:20:14,160 So they need to be tough. 335 00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:23,360 So, this is basically a big toilet roll of steel. 336 00:20:23,360 --> 00:20:25,640 Toilet roll of steel, I love it. 337 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,880 Definitely not something you'd want to wipe your bum with though. 338 00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:30,800 And then that's what it becomes? That's what it turns into, yes. 339 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:33,440 Can I pick it up? You pick it up if you want, yes. 340 00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:37,320 I mean, it's actually lighter than I was expecting it to be... Yes, yeah. 341 00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:39,600 ..given that this has to stop a car. 342 00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,200 It's how thin it is which is extraordinary. 343 00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:44,400 Three millimetres, that's all it is. 344 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:49,640 The key to getting something this thin to be so strong 345 00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:50,960 is its shape. 346 00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:58,000 It starts off like a piece of paper, has no strength to it at all. 347 00:20:58,000 --> 00:20:59,720 So if this was like a barrier like this... Yes. 348 00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:01,160 ..what would happen if you went into it? 349 00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:03,720 It's just flopping and bend over and break. Oh, right. 350 00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:05,680 OK. Just tear in half. 351 00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:10,240 So we put the folds in it, and it makes it nice and rigid. 352 00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:14,720 But not so rigid that it stops the vehicle instantly. 353 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:19,400 Humans don't react well to sudden stops or sudden change of direction. 354 00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:21,840 So it slows them down gradually. 355 00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:26,920 You can really see that it almost, like, takes on the properties 356 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:29,680 of like an elastic band. Exactly, yes. 357 00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:31,040 Like an unbreakable cushion. 358 00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:33,000 An unbreakable cushion, definitely, yes. 359 00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:38,480 I suddenly feel so much safer. Good. 360 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:40,160 Maybe I'll go up to 55mph. 361 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:42,200 Maybe go slightly faster! 362 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:50,640 To find out why that W is the ideal shape, 363 00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:53,440 I've sneaked into the back of the factory to try 364 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:55,040 out my own barrier. 365 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:03,480 First I need a crash test dummy, and I have an eggs-ellent candidate. 366 00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,320 I'm going to draw a face on it just to really get 367 00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:10,320 that emotional investment. 368 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:12,080 Let's call him Egbert. 369 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:17,640 He's looking a little worried, and for good reason, 370 00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:19,960 because I have here Egbert's car... 371 00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:26,520 ..and a solid wall that he is going to crash into. 372 00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:28,240 This is unforgiving. 373 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:30,200 There is no flex in this thing at all. 374 00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:33,560 This is going to be a very abrupt stop. 375 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:37,240 But, um, to allow Egbert to build up some speed, 376 00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:40,520 I've got something you don't find too often on motorways, 377 00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:42,320 um, a big old ramp. 378 00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:49,440 OK, Egbert is belted in and ready. 379 00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:51,080 Go! 380 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:54,800 OK, now, that's quite an impact. 381 00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:00,720 As the car comes down the ramp, it builds up all this momentum, 382 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:02,120 it has lots of energy, 383 00:23:02,120 --> 00:23:05,720 and then when it hits the wall, it stops dead and all that energy 384 00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,400 has to go somewhere, which means that the forces inside the car 385 00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:10,960 are very high. 386 00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:16,080 Those forces are felt by the surface of Egbert's shell. 387 00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:17,840 Omelette, anyone? 388 00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:20,600 Now, if this was a real car, the car would be in shatters, right? 389 00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:23,680 The front would be crumpled, it'd be an absolute disaster. 390 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:28,000 But watch what happens when I install my expertly-crafted, 391 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,400 flexible cardboard crash barrier. 392 00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:36,320 It's got a W shape to it, so let's just pop this in front. 393 00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:40,160 Maybe this time I'm going to do an Egbert that's just slightly 394 00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,520 more confident, a little bit more cocky, bit of a daredevil. 395 00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:45,520 So, now, everything else is the same, right? 396 00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:47,800 The ramp's the same, the egg's the same, the car's the same, 397 00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:51,680 but look at what happens when you let go instead. 398 00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:56,800 Ooh! How you doing there, little guy? 399 00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,160 He's fine! 400 00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,800 You can see, though, the barrier ends up being quite dented, 401 00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:04,040 quite a big old dent there. 402 00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:08,560 And there's a clue in that - some of the energy of stopping 403 00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:12,280 has dissipated through the crash barrier itself. 404 00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:17,320 The W-shaped barrier is designed to deform when hit by a vehicle. 405 00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:23,120 As it bends and crumples, it absorbs much of the force 406 00:24:23,120 --> 00:24:26,080 that would have gone into the car. 407 00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:30,040 By allowing some cushioning on the impact, 408 00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,320 Egbert has got away scot-free. 409 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:38,800 The wiggly W barrier is a crucial motorway safety feature, 410 00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:40,520 but how did we get them? 411 00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:49,480 The first crash barriers were simple walls or fences. 412 00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:52,520 Sadly, they tended to make injuries worse. 413 00:24:55,120 --> 00:24:59,760 In 1933, the corrugated Armco barrier arrived. 414 00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:04,200 It proved so good, it quickly became standard across the US. 415 00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:08,480 This test on a W section was at 60mph at an angle 416 00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:09,880 of 25 degrees. 417 00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:16,240 But when the M1, the UK's first full motorway, opened in 1959, 418 00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:20,360 they decided to rely on something else for safety. 419 00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:25,960 It will bring immense benefits if drivers use discipline 420 00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:27,640 and obey the rules. 421 00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:32,000 Yes. No crash barriers, just some nice firm rules. 422 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,000 If you overshoot the turning point, don't try to do this. 423 00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:40,200 Unsurprisingly, this did not prevent serious accidents, 424 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,160 and so a solution was urgently needed. 425 00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:45,840 It would come from a speedy Scotsman. 426 00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:55,480 So many of our friends died that something 427 00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:57,160 had to be done about it. 428 00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,600 That is Formula 1 legend Sir Jackie Stewart. 429 00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:06,600 He started racing in 1961 at just 22 years old, 430 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,800 and quickly found success. 431 00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:12,720 Racing ace Jackie Stewart. 432 00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:16,640 It was a kind of magic ride, actually. A big magic ride. 433 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,720 But the world of Formula 1 was also a deathtrap, 434 00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:23,760 with few safety precautions. 435 00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,120 In almost every circuit, there were no safety barriers. 436 00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:36,040 As Jackie discovered during a pivotal championship race in 1966. 437 00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:41,040 It was pouring with rain. 438 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,040 Got to the part of the racetrack that's famous for its speed. 439 00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:49,760 There was a huge river of water. 440 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:57,320 I got it full blown and I dropped off a telegraph pole, 441 00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,480 I dropped off a woodcutter's hut. 442 00:27:03,360 --> 00:27:07,920 Jackie lay badly injured in his car for almost half an hour. 443 00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:15,360 Finally got me out of the car, took me into the barn of a farmhouse 444 00:27:15,360 --> 00:27:17,040 and I was burning, you know. 445 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:20,720 So I got... I was coming in and out of consciousness. 446 00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:25,360 It was during his recovery from the accident that Jackie 447 00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:27,480 realised things had to change. 448 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:30,440 He'd had a lucky escape compared to many. 449 00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,000 It was a strange world at that time, 450 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:38,120 because we were losing friends all of the time. 451 00:27:38,120 --> 00:27:42,960 And the lack of safety precautions were clearly to blame. 452 00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:44,880 I'm off the ground completely, 453 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:50,560 there, probably doing 180mph and there's no run-off area, 454 00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:54,400 there's no barrier. That's what we were racing against. 455 00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,920 Jackie knew he was one of the few people who might be able 456 00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:02,840 to bring about change. 457 00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:04,320 Something had to be done about it, 458 00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:08,840 by which time I had won a couple of World Championships or so, 459 00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:10,920 and therefore, I had power. 460 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:17,200 He started to campaign for improved safety and racetrack barriers, 461 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:21,880 even persuading other drivers to boycott a big race. 462 00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,040 I closed the Nurburgring, because I was then chairman 463 00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,320 of the Grand Prix Drivers Association. 464 00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:30,680 But not everyone was on board. 465 00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:34,680 The changes would cost big money, and critics thought that safer 466 00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:37,280 tracks could detract from the sport's excitement. 467 00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:45,440 I mean, I got a lot of threats for my life and abuse 468 00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,440 from the organisers, 469 00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:53,640 but I was also winning and that was very difficult 470 00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:55,400 for them to forget. 471 00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:01,600 Eventually, the sport's governing body agreed to install crash 472 00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:05,440 barriers at the 1969 Spanish Grand Prix. 473 00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:09,600 Soon after, they appeared on all major race circuits. 474 00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:16,360 I'm forever proud that I was able, against incredible odds... 475 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,720 ..to close down some of the biggest racetracks in the world 476 00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:27,360 because they wouldn't put their house in order. 477 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:32,040 And yet, the UK's motorways were still barrier-free, 478 00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:36,680 with British MPs more keen to debate the benefits of rose bushes 479 00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:38,920 as a form of safety barrier. 480 00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:43,120 The big problem is the narrowness of the central reservation. 481 00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,080 There isn't really enough width to be able to grow bushes 482 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,120 that can form a natural barrier. 483 00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:53,120 But with their success in Formula 1, Jackie had bought Armco 484 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:54,760 barriers to prominence. 485 00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:59,560 When you're at the top of an international sport, 486 00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:01,880 you're dealing with heads of state. 487 00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:03,680 You're talking sometimes to governments, 488 00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:08,720 you're talking to track owners, you're talking to team owners. 489 00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:14,200 Finally, in the early 1970s, Armco barriers were installed on the M1, 490 00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,920 and by the 1980s they were standard on British motorways, 491 00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,800 ultimately saving thousands of lives. 492 00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:27,440 When I'm no longer here, will probably be my participation 493 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:34,400 in changing the level of removing danger from our sport, 494 00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:39,600 because if Formula 1 gets put into shape, it's a domino effect 495 00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:41,080 to every other. 496 00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,920 Today, our motorways are the safest roads we have, 497 00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:51,440 carrying over 20% of all traffic but with only 5% of fatalities. 498 00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:02,160 Driving is a dangerous business, but in the dark 499 00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:04,400 it can be even more treacherous. 500 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:08,920 Thankfully, there is a clever piece of tech keeping an eye 501 00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:12,120 on you and lighting the road ahead. 502 00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,960 It's our next component, the cat's eye. 503 00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:26,000 OK, sorry. Can you just...? 504 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:28,000 Oh, sorry. 505 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:29,320 Excuse me. 506 00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:30,480 Oh! 507 00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:32,760 Oh. 508 00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:37,040 There are over 12 million cat's eyes - 509 00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,960 sorry, reflective road studs as they're known in the industry - 510 00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:42,280 scattered across our roads. 511 00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,000 Despite using only the light from our headlights, 512 00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,480 they are incredibly effective. 513 00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,160 So how do they work? 514 00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,120 So if we can just turn the lights off for a second... 515 00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:59,880 Because it doesn't matter what direction you shine 516 00:31:59,880 --> 00:32:00,920 the light at... 517 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,840 ..it shines straight back at you... 518 00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:07,960 ..regardless of how you move around. 519 00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:14,760 And that means that when you are hurtling down the motorway, 520 00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:20,200 you will always be able to see these things reflecting back at you. 521 00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:21,920 And when you think about it, there is something quite 522 00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:23,000 incredible about that. 523 00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:26,400 This is a design that has no batteries, almost no 524 00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:27,680 real moving parts. 525 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:32,560 And to see how it manages to do that, um, I think it requires 526 00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,200 a little bit of cat surgery. 527 00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:37,720 Not you, Moggy. You're OK. 528 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:38,880 CAT MIAOWS 529 00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:40,080 HANNAH LAUGHS 530 00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:42,040 What a scaredy cat. 531 00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,560 Cat's eyes are remarkably uncomplicated things. 532 00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:51,200 You've got the heavy base. Then you've got this rubber insert. 533 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,360 And inside here are the cat's eyes themselves. 534 00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,760 I'm going to just pop one of these out using some pliers. 535 00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:01,560 There you go. 536 00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,440 I think it's time for my trusty hacksaw. 537 00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:16,800 And once you get down to the centre of it, it's almost laughably simple. 538 00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,960 This is a glass bead with a reflective surface on the back. 539 00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:23,640 And it is what makes cat's eyes work. 540 00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:26,120 Hold it there. 541 00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:30,360 In case you're wondering, it's also how the eye works in an actual cat. 542 00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,880 So at the back of a cat's eye, they have a layer of cells called 543 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:42,000 the tapetum lucidum, which acts like a reflective surface. 544 00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,160 And it means that they have much better vision in low-light 545 00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:50,120 conditions, but it's also why their eyes glow in the dark. 546 00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,960 But it's the angle of reflection that is key here. 547 00:33:55,960 --> 00:34:01,000 Let me show you what I mean with this laser pen and a mirror. 548 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,080 Now, you might imagine that a reflective surface 549 00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:05,880 on its own would be enough. Just pop mirrors into the road surface. 550 00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,160 It will reflect your headlights back at you. 551 00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,200 Well, viewer, you'd be wrong. 552 00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,560 Watch what happens when I shine the laser into the mirror. 553 00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:15,840 Now, for this eye, 554 00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:17,800 I'm going to have to wear a pair of glasses, partly 555 00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:20,640 because it protects my eyes from the laser, but mostly 556 00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:22,800 because it makes me look cool. 557 00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,240 Now, you can see with this, with this laser, that I'm pointing 558 00:34:28,240 --> 00:34:30,840 at the mirror from this direction over here. This is your headlights. 559 00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:32,440 You're kind of sitting up here. 560 00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,720 This is where you want the light to be reflected back to you, 561 00:34:34,720 --> 00:34:38,840 but instead it's hitting the mirror and then bouncing off somewhere 562 00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:43,560 over in the back with...where the cats can play with it. 563 00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:44,680 I think... 564 00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:52,440 Mirrors reflect light based on the angle it hits them. 565 00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,320 Most of the time scattering the light in different directions, 566 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,160 which is not ideal on the road. 567 00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,000 But the cat's eyes bring a clever solution. 568 00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,440 Watch what happens when you add in the glass bead, in this case 569 00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,080 represented by a beautiful glass orb. 570 00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:15,040 If you place that in front of the mirror and then do the exact 571 00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,720 same thing, you'll notice something very different. 572 00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:23,880 Oh, yeah. 573 00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:25,240 Can you see that? 574 00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:28,280 Look, it's shining right back at me. 575 00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,800 So there's no longer this bounce that's going off over there 576 00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:35,040 in the distance. It's shining right back onto my hand 577 00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,880 the position where the light beam is coming from. 578 00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:44,320 As the laser passes through the glass ball, it bends the light 579 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:49,360 perfectly towards the exact centre of this curved mirror, 580 00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:53,760 and at that point it can reflect straight back in the direction 581 00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,200 that it came from, rather than being bounced off in loads 582 00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:57,920 of different directions. 583 00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,320 And so it doesn't matter what angle you're at, it doesn't matter 584 00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,800 how fast you're going, what lane you're in, you are always 585 00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:07,760 going to be able to see these cat's eyes twinkling 586 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,040 from the road beneath you. 587 00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:11,960 I mean, that is very cool. 588 00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:18,640 The trusty cat's eye is a simple and brilliant way to light 589 00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,720 up the road and keep us safe. 590 00:36:21,720 --> 00:36:23,560 But where did they come from? 591 00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,800 Early roads had no markings at all... 592 00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:35,720 ..until one day in 1911, 593 00:36:35,720 --> 00:36:40,120 American road official Edward Hines was out cycling and got stuck 594 00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,000 behind a leaky milk wagon. 595 00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:48,440 He noticed it leaving a trail of white and had a genius idea. 596 00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:53,000 Why not use paint to mark out the road lanes and maybe stop people 597 00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:54,840 smashing into each other? 598 00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:02,240 White road lines kept us on the straight and narrow, 599 00:37:02,240 --> 00:37:04,240 but they had one big flaw. 600 00:37:04,240 --> 00:37:07,960 They were pretty tricky to see at night. 601 00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:12,760 It would take a Yorkshireman, a cat and a head lamp 602 00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:14,840 to solve that problem. 603 00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:22,680 Let's take a drive to 1930s Boothtown, 604 00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,400 home to road worker Percy Shaw. 605 00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:32,560 He was a great one for enjoying his beer, and the whole invention 606 00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:37,520 occurred because he had to get to the pub and back 607 00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:38,920 on a regular basis. 608 00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:43,920 That is Glenda Shaw, our Percy's great-granddaughter. 609 00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:49,080 Percy was an early adopter of the motorcar and drove 610 00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:50,760 to the pub each night. 611 00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,840 Clearly a different attitude to drink-driving back then. 612 00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:58,200 But he often struggled to see the dark road on his way home. 613 00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:02,440 One of the tricks he used to have was to follow the tramlines, 614 00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,200 because on your headlights of your car, it would pick 615 00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,520 up the metal and just glimmer back at you. 616 00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:14,280 But in 1930, buses were brought in, the tramlines were removed, 617 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,000 and Percy was left with a treacherous drive home, 618 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:19,320 until one night... 619 00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:26,960 He were coming home down a very steep road, with a precipice 620 00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:32,160 on the right-hand side that looked down into the valley. 621 00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:33,920 I mean, it really was steep. 622 00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:38,520 And he suddenly glimpsed a reflection on the side of the road. 623 00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:41,600 Yep, you guessed it. 624 00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:43,280 CAT MIAOWS 625 00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:49,600 The headlights picked up the cat's eyes and it stopped within inches 626 00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,520 of falling over this precipice. 627 00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,680 And that's when he got his eureka moment. 628 00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:03,320 Percy realised if he could replicate the special surface of a cat's eye 629 00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,960 to reflect his head lamps, he'd be on to a life-saving 630 00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,160 and money-spinning winner. 631 00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,240 Well, it was sort of trial and error. 632 00:39:14,240 --> 00:39:19,120 I mean, the first one he made, he had the eyes sort of stuck up. 633 00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:20,720 He realised that was wrong. 634 00:39:20,720 --> 00:39:25,440 You've got to bring the eyes in line with your headlights hitting them. 635 00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:27,680 Eventually, Percy cracked it. 636 00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:32,120 His feat of feline engineering had a cast-iron base with the now 637 00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,960 familiar rubber case and glass reflector beads. 638 00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:37,600 They don't need maintenance. 639 00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,680 They don't need batteries changing, nothing. 640 00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:43,400 It's just a really simple, brilliant idea. 641 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:49,840 In 1935, Percy patented the invention and started his company 642 00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:51,960 Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd. 643 00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,240 By the 1960s, 644 00:39:56,240 --> 00:40:00,600 Percy's company was making 2,000 cat's eyes a day, 645 00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:05,120 and he could finally afford some of life's finer things. 646 00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:06,840 It didn't change his life. 647 00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:08,560 He didn't move house. 648 00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:11,720 His big luxury was he... 649 00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:14,080 He bought a Rolls-Royce. 650 00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:18,840 It was the most expensive Rolls-Royce that they made. 651 00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:24,880 Percy died in 1976 at the age of 86. 652 00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:28,960 But Glenda's family still run the company, and his life-saving 653 00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:33,760 cat's eyes are still on roads all over the world today. 654 00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:39,120 We're just very proud, really, just to think that this young lad 655 00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:43,800 who left school at only 13 years old could do that. 656 00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:47,760 The Prime Minister, James Callaghan, on his retirement from 657 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,200 the House of Commons, said that the thing that he was proudest 658 00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:57,520 of was he sanctioned putting cat's eyes in the road. 659 00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:06,240 Motorways are great at getting us from A to B fast and efficiently, 660 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:10,480 but without our next component, you might struggle to make it to B 661 00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:12,280 at all. 662 00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,200 Guiding us where we want to go, 663 00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,120 it's motorway signs. 664 00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,480 OK, so what does it actually say? 665 00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,640 I'm trying to guess what it is. 666 00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,760 Oh, is that the other half of that word? That is, yeah. 667 00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:35,200 Oh. So, "Darling." 668 00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:37,040 "Darling." Darling-ton, that'll be. 669 00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:38,160 HANNAH LAUGHS 670 00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:40,360 Yeah. So that's half the sign. 671 00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:42,560 This is only this little section of this...? 672 00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:44,840 That is. Yeah. The top-left hand corner of the sign. Yeah. 673 00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,400 This is much bigger than it looks when you're driving past it. 674 00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:49,560 Yeah. This is like the size of a house. 675 00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:52,280 Yeah, well, it's 4m x 4m, roughly. 676 00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:55,680 A small house. A small house. Yes, exactly. 677 00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,080 That is David Church, operations manager 678 00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:03,320 for Royal British Legion Industries, builders of motorway signs. 679 00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:08,320 We've done some bigger signs than this. 680 00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:10,480 I mean, this one is about 16 square metres. 681 00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:13,000 We've done a sign that's 100 square metres. 682 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,440 Yeah. It went over four lanes of the motorway. 683 00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,040 OK. Now he's just showing off. 684 00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,160 At 70mph, you travel over 100ft per second. 685 00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:30,160 So big signs and big typeface are the order of the day, 686 00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,600 as is attention to detail. 687 00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:38,400 There was once a sign in Wales. 688 00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:39,960 Now they have it in English and Welsh. 689 00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:42,480 Yeah. And they'd obviously sent it off to a translator and printed 690 00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:43,720 what came back. 691 00:42:43,720 --> 00:42:46,000 But unfortunately, it was just the out-of-office for the translator 692 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:47,640 that they had printed on this... 693 00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:49,160 And it was in Welsh? In Welsh. 694 00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:52,200 So he didn't realise. No-one realised. Oh, dear. Yeah. 695 00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:58,240 So after David does a final spell check, it's time to make 696 00:42:58,240 --> 00:43:01,080 sure his gargantuan sign fits together. 697 00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:03,680 Beautiful. 698 00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,800 Making us do manual labour. I'm not OK with this. 699 00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:09,440 THEY LAUGH 700 00:43:14,720 --> 00:43:16,240 I mean, that is massive, isn't it? 701 00:43:16,240 --> 00:43:18,480 It's big, isn't it? Yeah. And this is one of your dinky ones? 702 00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,240 This is one of the smaller ones. 703 00:43:20,240 --> 00:43:23,840 This bit over here, it's like the size of a single bed. 704 00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:25,680 CONTENTED SIGHS 705 00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:27,320 THEY LAUGH 706 00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:33,320 Today's iconic motorway signs are so well-designed, we take 707 00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,000 them for granted. 708 00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,840 But the road to clear signage was long, bumpy and littered 709 00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:40,920 with accident-prone cyclists. 710 00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:49,440 Early road signs were just rocks with distances carved into them. 711 00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:55,880 But as the bicycle took off in the 1880s, cyclists struggled 712 00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,560 to read them at speed, leading to frequent crashes. 713 00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:03,840 And so they started putting up danger boards to warn 714 00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:05,240 of hazards ahead. 715 00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:11,000 A few decades later, motor cars were tearing up the tarmac, bringing 716 00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:13,480 new hazards and even more signs. 717 00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:20,080 Soon, the roadside was littered with a mind-boggling array of signs 718 00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,520 in all different sizes and colours and fonts. 719 00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:27,840 Exasperating, isn't it? 720 00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,320 But the arrival of high-speed motorways in the 1950s made sorting 721 00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:35,560 out this sign anarchy a matter of urgency. 722 00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:45,920 I mean, the signs were appalling and I think quite dangerous. 723 00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,560 That's Margaret Calvert OBE, queen of the modern road sign. 724 00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,360 She was close to dropping out of the prestigious Chelsea School 725 00:44:56,360 --> 00:45:00,960 of Art when graphic designer Jock Kinnear came to the college. 726 00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:07,800 So he came in one day a week to give us some idea of what graphic 727 00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:09,360 design was about. 728 00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,800 He set projects which involved a bit of lettering. 729 00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,400 I mean, I didn't know anything about typefaces then. 730 00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:18,240 The other students weren't in the slightest bit interested, 731 00:45:18,240 --> 00:45:20,880 but I immediately latched on to it. 732 00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:26,680 I would take work home and I always looked forward to Mondays. 733 00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:33,640 Jock was so impressed, he offered Margaret a job, and his firm 734 00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,600 had just landed the contract to design signs 735 00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,880 for the UK's first motorway. 736 00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:44,080 Well, the signs that existed, they were absolutely chaotic. 737 00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,320 They just wouldn't have worked. 738 00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:51,160 Not to mention impossible to read at motorway speeds. 739 00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:58,920 The government had helpfully instructed the pair to use the same 740 00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,840 typeface as the new German autobahns. 741 00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:07,040 And, of course, we completely ignored it. 742 00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:11,280 We just went ahead with our own version based 743 00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:15,840 on a typeface called Akzidenz-Grotesk. 744 00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:19,040 Interesting choice for a road sign, Margaret. 745 00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:23,080 And I can remember changing it completely, and eventually that's 746 00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:24,960 what we used. 747 00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:29,480 Their newly designed typeface was simply called Motorway, 748 00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:33,400 and it was unique in that it used lowercase lettering. 749 00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:41,320 Well, lowercase, simply because if you read a place name 750 00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:45,760 like, say, Birmingham, it's got a shape to it, because you've got 751 00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,920 the capital B, the H and the G. 752 00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,360 So that gives you a word shape. 753 00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:55,120 But if it's all in capitals, there's no shape to it. 754 00:46:56,120 --> 00:47:00,680 The shape didn't just make the sign look elegant, it also made it much 755 00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,560 easier to read at speed. 756 00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:05,840 At the right decision-making moment, 757 00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,440 the place name is formed and you can read it instantly, 758 00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:10,720 or very quickly. 759 00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,640 Alongside the new typeface, Margaret was also developing the colour 760 00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:19,040 of the new motorway signs. 761 00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,320 The actual colour of the signs was important 762 00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:24,360 from a point of legibility. 763 00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:27,960 White letters reflect light, so they are stronger. 764 00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,800 So your eye goes to the actual place names. 765 00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:36,000 And I thought they looked good in the English countryside, 766 00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:41,720 which is all greens and blues, and sometimes grey when it rains. 767 00:47:41,720 --> 00:47:46,080 The radical redesign provoked strong reactions from the public. 768 00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:48,880 Opponents called them "crudely coloured", 769 00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:54,040 "overpoweringly large" and even "designed for lunatic drivers". 770 00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:58,120 And rival topographer David Kindersley was so outraged 771 00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:02,720 by their signs, he tried to get them replaced with his own design. 772 00:48:03,720 --> 00:48:06,120 We just felt he was interfering. 773 00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:10,000 He wasn't commissioned to do the job, so that was that. 774 00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,800 But we never felt threatened by it. 775 00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:20,040 This topographer war eventually hit a full stop in 1958, when Jock 776 00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:23,920 and Margaret's signs were installed on the Preston Bypass... 777 00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:29,680 ..and then rolled out to every motorway across the country. 778 00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:35,480 Remarkably, their design has changed very little since. 779 00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,120 I think the signs don't date. 780 00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:39,800 That's the important thing. 781 00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:43,560 They've got a timeless feature about them. 782 00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:47,360 I think I'm just very lucky to have worked on things 783 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:51,560 that have proved life for people in the public realm. 784 00:49:00,720 --> 00:49:04,320 So just how easy is it to speed read Margaret's signs? 785 00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:11,000 I'm heading to this service station car park to find out. 786 00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,400 Oh, gosh. I genuinely feel like a spy. 787 00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,320 Yeah. They suit you. They look good. 788 00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:20,360 That is Professor Polly Dalton from Royal Holloway, 789 00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:23,440 University of London. 790 00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:26,840 She's given me these fetching glasses with special cameras 791 00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,240 inside to track my eye movements. 792 00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:36,400 That red circle there is your eye movements, and so you can see them 793 00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:39,320 as they move around the scenes. Very clever. 794 00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:43,200 Motorway signs are cleverly designed to be read in a maximum 795 00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:44,400 of four seconds. 796 00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:48,080 Let's see how long it takes me. 797 00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:51,880 We're going to be looking at your eye movements as you drive, 798 00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,280 to get a sense of how often and for how long you're looking 799 00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:57,360 at the motorway signage. OK. 800 00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:01,720 Using just the road signs, I have to loop around and find my way 801 00:50:01,720 --> 00:50:04,840 back to these services, because who doesn't want to spend 802 00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:07,080 more time in motorway services? 803 00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:09,120 Am I not allowed to use sat nav? 804 00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:11,280 No. This is all about the motorway signage. 805 00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,320 So, yeah. Old school. 806 00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:14,680 Yeah, exactly. 807 00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:25,760 So I am going to come off at the next junction. 808 00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:27,440 Let's have a look. Where are we? 809 00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:29,640 Now, there's a bit of roadworks going on here. 810 00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:31,640 There's a lane closed. 811 00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:35,120 Yeah. This is a really good example of how much information 812 00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:38,040 there is for us to process when we're driving. 813 00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:41,760 On top of that are all the other distractions crying out 814 00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:44,360 for our attention, like the traffic... 815 00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:49,560 This is the thing about the M25, there's, like, trucks to your right, 816 00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,160 which I detest. 817 00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:53,560 ..or the weather. 818 00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:56,320 These kinds of driving conditions, they just put even more demand 819 00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,200 on the driver. Mm. 820 00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:02,760 It'll be really interesting to see what the data says, because it feels 821 00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:06,480 like I'm not actually looking at the signs too much. 822 00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:08,800 The end of the test is in sight. 823 00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:12,800 OK. Clacket Lane services. One mile. 824 00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:14,800 I'm going to linger for that four seconds to think 825 00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:17,640 about the service burger that I'm 826 00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:19,280 going to have for lunch. 827 00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:20,760 THEY LAUGH 828 00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:24,800 And the results are in. 829 00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,040 We can have a look at where your eyes are going on the scene. 830 00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,560 You're spending most of your time looking roughly in the middle 831 00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:33,720 of the road, which is giving you the good sense of awareness 832 00:51:33,720 --> 00:51:34,920 for the road around you. 833 00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,560 You're doing some looking over at your mirrors. 834 00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:41,120 And then we have seen a few movements over there to the signs 835 00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:42,800 as you go past them. Let's see. Yes. There you go. 836 00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,240 You have a look at that one over there. 837 00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:48,920 The data shows I spent an average of 2.3 seconds looking 838 00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:50,600 at each road sign. 839 00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:52,800 Well inside the four seconds. 840 00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:56,080 Thanks, Margaret. 841 00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:05,400 Our motorways are marvels of ingenuity, but we can't ignore 842 00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:09,840 the impact our need for speed has on the planet. 843 00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:13,640 Instead of the end of the road, though, 844 00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:15,280 maybe motorways are the fork 845 00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,400 in the road leading us to a greener future. 846 00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:28,600 Driving creates around a tenth of global CO2 emissions. 847 00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:34,880 Electric vehicles offer hope, but the challenges of charging 848 00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:36,320 are a big problem. 849 00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:42,240 And so I am in Milan to try out a new kind of road. 850 00:52:42,240 --> 00:52:44,480 One that could be the answer. 851 00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:48,440 Next time around, I will get a Ferrari for you. 852 00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:49,680 Unbelievable. 853 00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:56,320 That is Gilad Sharon of tech company Electreon. 854 00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:00,960 He thinks that their new self-charging road could make range 855 00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:03,080 anxiety a thing of the past. 856 00:53:05,240 --> 00:53:06,600 HANNAH LAUGHS 857 00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:08,440 Triple clap! 858 00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:08,440 GILAD LAUGHS 859 00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:11,640 And, of course, I want to drive. 860 00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:12,920 Have they, um... 861 00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,000 Have they told you that I'm a terrible driver? 862 00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:16,840 I'll hang on. 863 00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:18,000 Do. 864 00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:19,440 GILAD LAUGHS 865 00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:25,880 The 35-degree heat and broken aircon are also not going to help, 866 00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:27,640 but at least my mission is simple. 867 00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:30,120 Just follow the blue lines. 868 00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:32,520 So, Hannah, you know what's special about this car? 869 00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:36,200 Besides being nice and...nice and cosy? 870 00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:38,160 Cosy is one word for it. 871 00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:41,400 What's happening on the background is that every time we are driving 872 00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,960 over this specific lane, we are wirelessly charging 873 00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:47,280 the vehicle while we're driving. 874 00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:54,080 Yes, it charges as you drive with no wires or charge points. 875 00:53:57,320 --> 00:54:00,800 Show me. OK. So here, you see this? It's charging. It's charging. 876 00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:02,400 So if I come off... 877 00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:04,160 And... 878 00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,600 Oh. Wait. It diminishes to zero. 879 00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:10,160 Yeah. Go back on. And if I go back on... 880 00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:11,960 Amazing. Look at that! 881 00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:16,400 So what is the secret to those blue lines? 882 00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:18,200 Spill the beans, Gilad. 883 00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,920 Just look, those toys we had when we were kids and they had those 884 00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,400 little cars that went on the electrified road. 885 00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,800 Like Scalextric kind of thing? Yeah. It's the same principle. 886 00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:33,080 OK. But those toy cars have got, like, the little wire brushes 887 00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:34,440 that hang down from underneath. 888 00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:36,800 If I turn this car upside down, will I see the same thing under here? 889 00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:41,000 No. What you will see is basically a receiver. 890 00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:46,480 The receiver is a 40cm-wide electromagnetic coil linked 891 00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:48,840 to the car's battery. 892 00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:53,120 Another coil in the road transfers power to the car. 893 00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:54,560 This is the bit in the road. 894 00:54:54,560 --> 00:54:56,920 This is the coil segment. It's super-simple. 895 00:54:56,920 --> 00:55:00,360 It's basically rubber with copper in it. 896 00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:03,120 Buried 20cm below the surface, 897 00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:06,840 the coil segments are linked together in a row. 898 00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:11,240 When high-voltage electricity passes through them, it creates 899 00:55:11,240 --> 00:55:14,120 an invisible magnetic field. 900 00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:17,720 When the car's receiver passes through this field, it converts 901 00:55:17,720 --> 00:55:21,480 it back into electricity, charging the battery quicker 902 00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:23,280 than the vehicle uses it. 903 00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:29,320 You could just carry on driving without ever 904 00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:31,320 having to stop to charge? Never. 905 00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:32,480 Wow. 906 00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:37,680 Gilad's next step is to get this tech onto a motorway 907 00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:39,160 for real. 908 00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:43,320 Like all new technology, right now it's expensive. 909 00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:46,840 £1.6 million a mile expensive. 910 00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:49,960 But Electreon hope to halve that once it's scaled up. 911 00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:54,560 And then they'll recoup their costs from the vehicles that use it. 912 00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:59,640 The whole idea eventually is to install this is where the buses 913 00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:01,240 and the trucks go. 914 00:56:01,240 --> 00:56:04,800 They need a lot of energy and they will sell them the charge. 915 00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:08,520 And once it's in the road, you don't need to touch it any more. 916 00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:10,840 No maintenance needed. 917 00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:14,240 Electreon plans to build longer stretches of electric road 918 00:56:14,240 --> 00:56:16,520 in Italy, Sweden and France. 919 00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:18,200 But don't get too excited. 920 00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:22,040 The fully wireless motorway is still a few years off. 921 00:56:29,040 --> 00:56:32,120 Nobody quite knows what lies ahead for motorways 922 00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:35,080 in a cleaner, greener world. 923 00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:40,120 A symbol of progress and future, they have been adapting for over 924 00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:44,080 70 years and will need to keep evolving. 925 00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:47,320 Just as long as no-one changes Tebay services. 926 00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:51,000 I think it's really notable that all of those decades 927 00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:55,760 ago, when motorways were first conceived, that world 928 00:56:55,760 --> 00:56:57,400 sort of doesn't really exist any more. 929 00:56:57,400 --> 00:57:00,760 So many more cars on the roads now than there ever were. 930 00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:05,120 And that means that all those invisible bits are going to become 931 00:57:05,120 --> 00:57:08,840 ever more important for motorways to remain fit 932 00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:10,800 for purpose going forwards. 933 00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:18,640 The Open University has produced a free poster exploring what lies 934 00:57:18,640 --> 00:57:21,440 behind the genius of some everyday objects. 935 00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:24,000 To order a copy, call... 936 00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:28,720 ..scan the QR code, or go to... 937 00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,160 ..and follow the links to the Open University.