Jonas Eliasson: How to solve traffic jams

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast

Translator: Zuzana Šplhová Reviewer: Igor Lalík

Hi. I'm here to talk about congestion,

Prišiel som vám porozprávať o zápche.

namely road congestion.

Konkrétne o dopravnej zápche.

Road congestion is a pervasive phenomenon.

Dopravné zápchy sú všade.

It exists in basically all of the cities all around the world,

Vznikajú v skoro všetkých mestách na celom svete

which is a little bit surprising when you think about it.

a keď sa nad tým zamyslíte, je to prekvapivé.

I mean, think about how different cities are, actually.

Len si predstavte, aké je každé mesto iné.

I mean, you have the typical European cities,

Napríklad typické európske mestá

with a dense urban core, good public transportation

majú zahustené centrum, dobrú hromadnú dopravu

mostly, not a lot of road capacity.

a málo miesta na cestách.

But then, on the other hand, you have the American cities.

A na druhej strane sú americké mestá.

It's moving by itself, okay.

(Fajn, prepína sa mi to samo.)

Anyway, the American cities:

Zoberme si teda mestá v USA.

lots of roads dispersed over large areas,

Veľa ciest rozvetvených po veľkých oblastiach

almost no public transportation.

a skoro nijaká hromadná doprava.

And then you have the emerging world cities,

Potom existujú rozrastajúce sa svetové metropoly

with a mixed variety of vehicles,

s rôznorodou škálou vozidiel a

mixed land-use patterns, also rather dispersed

a infraštruktúrou. Centrá miest sú väčšinou

but often with a very dense urban core.

rozvetvené, ale často veľmi prehustené.

And traffic planners all around the world have tried

Dopravní znalci po celom svete

lots of different measures: dense cities or dispersed cities,

už vyskúšali rôzne opatrenia: prehustené i rozťahané mestá,

lots of roads or lots of public transport

hustú dopravnú sieť aj hromadnú dopravu,

or lots of bike lanes or more information,

cyklistické chodníky a viac informácií

or lots of different things, but nothing seems to work.

alebo veľa iných vecí, ale nič nepomohlo.

But all of these attempts have one thing in common.

Všetky pokusy majú však niečo spoločné.

They're basically attempts at figuring out

Snažia sa zistiť,

what people should do instead of rush hour car driving.

čo by mali ľudia robiť namiesto jazdy v dopravnej špičke.

They're essentially, to a point, attempts at planning

Snažia sa ľuďom povedať, čo by mali robiť.

what other people should do, planning their life for them.

Plánujú im život.

Now, planning a complex social system

Viete, naplánovať celú spoločnosť

is a very hard thing to do, and let me tell you a story.

je skutočne ťažké... poviem vám príbeh.

Back in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell,

Keď v roku 1989 padol Berlínsky múr,

an urban planner in London got a phone call

územnému plánovačovi v Londýne

from a colleague in Moscow saying, basically,

zavolal kolega z Moskvy.

"Hi, this is Vladimir. I'd like to know,

Hovoril: „Ahoj, tu je Vladimir. Chcel by som vedieť,

who's in charge of London's bread supply?"

kto má na starosti zásobovanie Londýna chlebom.“

And the urban planner in London goes,

A územný plánovač odpovedal:

"What do you mean, who's in charge of London's —

„Čo tým myslíš?

I mean, no one is in charge."

Nikto to nemá na starosti.“

"Oh, but surely someone must be in charge.

„Ale veď niekto sa o to musí starať.

I mean, it's a very complicated system. Someone must control all of this."

Je to zložité, niekto to musí riadiť.“

"No. No. No one is in charge.

„Nie, nie. Nikto.

I mean, it basically -- I haven't really thought of it.

Vlastne som sa nad tým nezamýšľal.

It basically organizes itself."

Zásobovanie funguje samo od seba.“

It organizes itself.

Funguje samo od seba.

That's an example of a complex social system

Je to príklad spoločenského systému,

which has the ability of self-organizing,

ktorý sa vie sám zorganizovať.

and this is a very deep insight.

Skutočne sme hlboko nahliadli do problému.

When you try to solve really complex social problems,

Keď chcete vyriešiť zložité spoločenské problémy

the right thing to do is most of the time

väčšinou je správne

to create the incentives.

vytvoriť podnety.

You don't plan the details,

Neplánujte detaily

and people will figure out what to do,

a ľudia sami prídu na to, čo robiť

how to adapt to this new framework.

a ako sa prispôsobiť novému systému.

And let's now look at how we can use this insight

Poďme sa pozrieť, ako využijeme tento poznatok

to combat road congestion.

na boj proti dopravným zápcham.

This is a map of Stockholm, my hometown.

Toto je mapa Štokholmu, kde som vyrastal.

Now, Stockholm is a medium-sized city, roughly two million people,

Štokholm je stredne veľké mesto s dvomi miliónmi ľudí.

but Stockholm also has lots of water and lots of water

Je tam aj veľa vody a veľa vody znamená

means lots of bridges -- narrow bridges, old bridges --

veľa mostov – sú úzke a staré.

which means lots of road congestion.

Znamená to veľa dopravných zápch.

And these red dots show the most congested parts,

Červené bodky ukazujú miesta s najčastejšími zápchami,

which are the bridges that lead into the inner city.

čo sú vlastne mosty vedúce do stredu mesta.

And then someone came up with the idea that,

Zrazu niekomu skrsla v hlave myšlienka,

apart from good public transport,

že namiesto dobrej hromadnej dopravy

apart from spending money on roads,

a namiesto investovania peňazí do ciest

let's try to charge drivers one or two euros at these bottlenecks.

môžu v týchto lievikoch účtovať 1 alebo 2 eurá.

Now, one or two euros, that isn't really a lot of money,

Nie je to veľa peňazí, ak to porovnáte

I mean compared to parking charges and running costs, etc.,

s cenou parkovania, prevádzkovými nákladmi...

so you would probably expect that car drivers

Asi by ste čakali,

wouldn't really react to this fairly small charge.

že šoféri nebudú mať námietky.

You would be wrong.

Ale mýlite sa.

One or two euros was enough to make 20 percent of cars

Stačili 1 až 2 eurá a 20 % áut

disappear from rush hours.

zmizlo z dopravnej špičky.

Now, 20 percent, well, that's a fairly huge figure, you might think,

Povedali by ste, že 20 % je celkom veľa.

but you've still got 80 percent left of the problem, right?

Ale stále nám ostáva zvyšných 80 % problému, nie?

Because you still have 80 percent of the traffic.

Tých 80 % áut tam ešte stále je.

Now, that's also wrong, because traffic happens to be

To nie je pravda, lebo doprava je nelineárny jav.

a nonlinear phenomenon, meaning that

Čo znamená,

once you reach above a certain capacity threshold

že keď sa dosiahne určitá kapacitná hranica,

then congestion starts to increase really, really rapidly.

zápcha sa začne zväčšovať veľmi, veľmi rýchlo.

But fortunately, it also works the other way around.

Našťastie to funguje aj naopak.

If you can reduce traffic even somewhat, then congestion

Ak iba trochu znížite počet áut,

will go down much faster than you might think.

zápcha sa bude znižovať ešte rýchlejšie.

Now, congestion charges were introduced in Stockholm

Poplatky sa v Štokholme zaviedli 3. januára 2006.

on January 3, 2006, and the first picture here is a picture

Na prvom obrázku je Štokholm,

of Stockholm, one of the typical streets, January 2.

jedna z jeho typických ulíc, 2. januára.

The first day with the congestion charges looked like this.

Takto vyzeral prvý deň po zavedení poplatkov.

This is what happens when you take away

Takto to vyzerá,

20 percent of the cars from the streets.

keď z ciest zmizne 20 % áut.

You really reduce congestion quite substantially.

Zápchy sa značne zmenšili.

But, well, as I said, I mean, car drivers adapt, right?

Ale ako som už povedal, vodiči sa prispôsobujú.

So after a while they would all come back because they

Takže po čase sa všetci vrátia,

have sort of gotten used to charges.

lebo si na poplatky zvyknú.

Wrong again. It's now six and a half years ago

Zase sa mýlite.

since the congestion charges were introduced in Stockholm,

Poplatky sa zaviedli pred 6 a pol rokom

and we basically have the same low traffic levels still.

a stále máme rovnako nízku mieru zápch.

But you see, there's an interesting gap here in the time series

Ale ako vidíte, v roku 2007 sa objavila

in 2007.

zaujímavá diera.

Well, the thing is that, the congestion charges,

Je to preto, lebo poplatky

they were introduced first as a trial, so they were introduced

sa v januári zaviedli najskôr

in January and then abolished again at the end of July,

iba skúšobne a na konci júla sa zrušili.

followed by a referendum, and then they were reintroduced

Nasledovalo referendum a znova sa v roku 2007

again in 2007, which of course was a wonderful scientific opportunity.

zaviedli, čo bola úžasná príležitosť pre vedu.

I mean, this was a really fun experiment to start with,

Začali sme so zábavným pokusom

and we actually got to do it twice.

a dokonca sme ho uskutočnili dvakrát.

And personally, I would like to do this every once a year or so,

Osobne by som ho robil každý rok.

but they won't let me do that.

Ale to mi nedovolia.

But it was fun anyway.

Ale aj tak to bola zábava.

So, we followed up. What happened?

Takže čo sa stalo?

This is the last day with the congestion charges, July 31,

Toto je 31. júl, posledný deň poplatkov.

and you see the same street but now it's summer,

Toto je tá istá ulica, ale v lete.

and summer in Stockholm is a very nice

Leto v Štokholme je veľmi pekné

and light time of the year,

a slnečné obdobie.

and the first day without the congestion charges

Prvý deň bez poplatkov

looked like this.

vyzeral takto.

All the cars were back again, and you even have to admire

Všetky autá sa vrátili a dokonca musíte

the car drivers. They adapt so extremely quickly.

obdivovať vodičov. Rýchlo sa prispôsobujú.

The first day they all came back.

Všetci sa vrátili už v prvý deň.

And this effect hanged on. So 2007 figures looked like this.

A všetko bolo ako pred tým. Štatistika z roku 2007 vyzerá takto.

Now these traffic figures are really exciting

Tieto čísla sú skutočne zaujímavé

and a little bit surprising and very useful to know,

a aj trochu prekvapivé a veľmi užitočné.

but I would say that the most surprising slide here

Ale najprekvapivejšia časť prezentácie,

I'm going to show you today is not this one. It's this one.

ktorú vám ukážem, nie je táto. Ale táto.

This shows public support for congestion pricing of Stockholm,

Verejná podpora poplatkov v Štokholme.

and you see that when congestion pricing were introduced

Keď sa na začiatku jari 2006

in the beginning of Spring 2006, people were fiercely against it.

zaviedli poplatky, boli ľudia zásadne proti.

Seventy percent of the population didn't want this.

Nechcelo ich 70 % obyvateľov.

But what happened when the congestion charges

Ale keď sa poplatky zaviedli,

were there is not what you would expect, that people hated it more and more.

nestalo sa to, že by ich ľudia stále viac nechceli.

No, on the contrary, they changed, up to a point

Práve naopak. Ľudia postoj zmenili,

where we now have 70 percent support for keeping the charges,

dokonca teraz 70 % ľudí poplatky podporuje a chce ich.

meaning that -- I mean, let me repeat that:

Budem sa opakovať, ale znamená to,

70 percent of the population in Stockholm

že 70 % obyvateľov Štokholmu

want to keep a price for something that used to be free.

chce platiť za niečo, čo bolo kedysi zadarmo.

Okay. So why can that be? Why is that?

Ako je to vlastne možné?

Well, think about it this way. Who changed?

Pozrime sa na to inak. Kto sa zmenil?

I mean, the 20 percent of the car drivers that disappeared,

Tých 20 % vodičov, ktorí zmizli,

surely they must be discontent in a way.

bolo určite nespokojných.

And where did they go? If we can understand this,

Kam išli? Ak toto pochopíme,

then maybe we can figure out how people can be so happy with this.

možno zistíme aj to, prečo sú ľudia s poplatkami spokojní.

Well, so we did this huge interview survey

Spravili sme obrovský prieskum

with lots of travel services, and tried to figure out

s dopravnými spoločnosťami a snažili sme sa zistiť,

who changed, and where did they go?

kto sa zmenil a kam zmizli.

And it turned out that they don't know themselves. (Laughter)

Ukázalo sa, že ani oni nevedia. (Smiech)

For some reason, the car drivers are --

Z nejakého dôvodu sú šoféri...

they are confident they actually drive the same way that they used to do.

sú presvedčení, že jazdia rovnako, ako predtým.

And why is that? It's because that travel patterns

Ako to je možné? Dôvodom je, že ľudia

are much less stable than you might think.

necestujú stále rovnako.

Each day, people make new decisions, and people change

Každý deň sa ľudia rozhodujú inak a menia sa.

and the world changes around them, and each day

Svet okolo nich sa mení, každý deň.

all of these decisions are sort of nudged ever so slightly

Každý deň sa ich rozhodnutia o tom, ako sa vyhnú dopravnej špičke

away from rush hour car driving

nepatrne menia tak,

in a way that people don't even notice.

že si to ani nevšimnú.

They're not even aware of this themselves.

Vôbec o tom nevedia.

And the other question, who changed their mind?

Čo ešte zmenilo ich zmýšľanie?

Who changed their opinion, and why?

Kto zmenil ich názor a prečo?

So we did another interview survey, tried to figure out

Spravili sme ďalší prieskum a chceli sme zistiť,

why people changed their mind, and what type of group changed their minds?

prečo ľudia zmenili názor a aké skupiny obyvateľov to boli.

And after analyzing the answers, it turned out that

Keď sme spracovali odpovede, ukázalo sa,

more than half of them believe that they haven't changed their minds.

že viac ako polovica z nich verí, že svoj názor vôbec nezmenili.

They're actually confident that they have

Sú presvedčení,

liked congestion pricing all along.

že od začiatku poplatky podporovali.

Which means that we are now in a position

Znamená to, že sme sa ocitli v situácií,

where we have reduced traffic across this toll cordon

kedy je vďaka poplatkom na cestách o 20 % menej áut

with 20 percent, and reduced congestion by enormous numbers,

a došlo k obrovskému zníženiu dopravných zápch.

and people aren't even aware that they have changed,

A ľudia si ani neuvedomujú, že sa zmenili.

and they honestly believe that they have liked this all along.

Úprimne veria, že vždy poplatky podporovali.

This is the power of nudges when trying to solve

Ľudí stačí iba postrčiť a pomôže to

complex social problems, and when you do that,

pri riešení spoločenských problémov.

you shouldn't try to tell people how to adapt.

Pritom by by sme nemali ľuďom hovoriť, ako sa prispôsobiť.

You should just nudge them in the right direction.

Mali by sme ich iba postrčiť správnym smerom.

And if you do it right,

Ak to urobíte správnym spôsobom,

people will actually embrace the change,

ľudia zmenu prijmú

and if you do it right, people will actually even like it.

a dokonca sa im aj bude páčiť.

Thank you. (Applause)

Ďakujem. (Potlesk)