full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jonas Eliasson: How to solve traffic jams

Unscramble the Blue Letters


"No. No. No one is in charge. I mean, it blcaasily — I haven't really thought of it. It basically organizes itself."

It organizes itself. That's an example of a complex social system which has the ability of self-organizing, and this is a very deep insight. When you try to solve really complex social problems, the right thing to do is most of the time to cetare the incentives. You don't plan the details, and poeple will figure out what to do, how to apdat to this new framework.

And let's now look at how we can use this insight to combat road congestion.

This is a map of Stockholm, my hometown. Now, Stockholm is a medium-sized city, roughly two miloiln people, but Stockholm also has lots of water and lots of water means lots of bridges — narrow bridges, old bridges — which mneas lots of road congestion. And these red dots show the most costgneed parts, which are the bigedrs that lead into the inner city. And then someone came up with the idea that, apart from good public transport, apart from spending moeny on roads, let's try to charge drivers one or two eours at these bottlenecks.

Open Cloze


"No. No. No one is in charge. I mean, it _________ — I haven't really thought of it. It basically organizes itself."

It organizes itself. That's an example of a complex social system which has the ability of self-organizing, and this is a very deep insight. When you try to solve really complex social problems, the right thing to do is most of the time to ______ the incentives. You don't plan the details, and ______ will figure out what to do, how to _____ to this new framework.

And let's now look at how we can use this insight to combat road congestion.

This is a map of Stockholm, my hometown. Now, Stockholm is a medium-sized city, roughly two _______ people, but Stockholm also has lots of water and lots of water means lots of bridges — narrow bridges, old bridges — which _____ lots of road congestion. And these red dots show the most _________ parts, which are the _______ that lead into the inner city. And then someone came up with the idea that, apart from good public transport, apart from spending _____ on roads, let's try to charge drivers one or two _____ at these bottlenecks.

Solution


  1. million
  2. people
  3. basically
  4. create
  5. congested
  6. bridges
  7. adapt
  8. money
  9. means
  10. euros

Original Text


"No. No. No one is in charge. I mean, it basically — I haven't really thought of it. It basically organizes itself."

It organizes itself. That's an example of a complex social system which has the ability of self-organizing, and this is a very deep insight. When you try to solve really complex social problems, the right thing to do is most of the time to create the incentives. You don't plan the details, and people will figure out what to do, how to adapt to this new framework.

And let's now look at how we can use this insight to combat road congestion.

This is a map of Stockholm, my hometown. Now, Stockholm is a medium-sized city, roughly two million people, but Stockholm also has lots of water and lots of water means lots of bridges — narrow bridges, old bridges — which means lots of road congestion. And these red dots show the most congested parts, which are the bridges that lead into the inner city. And then someone came up with the idea that, apart from good public transport, apart from spending money on roads, let's try to charge drivers one or two euros at these bottlenecks.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
car drivers 5
congestion charges 5
road congestion 4
complex social 4
congestion pricing 3
bit surprising 2
dense urban 2
good public 2
public transportation 2
rush hour 2
hour car 2
car driving 2
social system 2
urban planner 2
means lots 2
charges looked 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
rush hour car 2
hour car driving 2
complex social system 2
congestion charges looked 2

Important Words


  1. ability
  2. adapt
  3. basically
  4. bottlenecks
  5. bridges
  6. charge
  7. city
  8. combat
  9. complex
  10. congested
  11. congestion
  12. create
  13. deep
  14. details
  15. dots
  16. drivers
  17. euros
  18. figure
  19. framework
  20. good
  21. hometown
  22. idea
  23. incentives
  24. insight
  25. lead
  26. lots
  27. map
  28. means
  29. million
  30. money
  31. narrow
  32. organizes
  33. parts
  34. people
  35. plan
  36. problems
  37. public
  38. red
  39. road
  40. roads
  41. roughly
  42. show
  43. social
  44. solve
  45. spending
  46. stockholm
  47. system
  48. thought
  49. time
  50. transport
  51. water