IT is another bright sunny day on the M25 and the traffic is at a standstill because a lorry has shed a load of asbestos sheets across all four lanes. Having been in this jam for over an hour I have made all of my phone calls, used all my dictation tape, and I have started to listen to music. But I'm sitting here thinking about the desperate waste of time and life. In the normal course of events I would have someone else drive my car so that I can work. But on this occasion I am on my own, my computer is at my side and there is a growing temptation to type, but that wouldn't make any sense from a safety point of view.

What I really need is the ability to sit in this jam and search the Net by voice using my car computer, and have the results displayed on what is currently my navigation screen. I could then use this downtime most effectively for searching for those kernels of information and experience that I need at some future date, then to arrive at my office or home with the downloaded information ready to go. And I would not then have wasted several hours in this multi-million pound jam.

Like many countries, Britain is now wasting more resources on traffic jams than it spends on health. Despite the fact many of us use audio and video conferencing to tele-work to the full extent, there are still occasions when we have to travel. But why are all these people here? I can't help but think that a large proportion of the cars in this jam could be taken off the road if the people and companies were using technology more effectively.

Perhaps this is a dream - what if they are already using technology as effectively as they can, and, like me, find themselves trapped in stationary tin box on four wheels for no other reason than we don't yet have all the technology to obviate travelling?

As I sit here I can imagine enough energy being dissipated by the vehicles and people in this one traffic jam to power up the global telecommunications network. There seem to be approximately 10 stationary vehicles (large and small) every 10 metres of this motorway. So around 100 vehicles every 100 metres, and 1,000 every kilometre are idle. In this 15km jam we have an estimated 15,000 vehicles, all idling.

Assuming an average energy consumption of the order 3kW, the total for this traffic jam, which is just one of many on this day in Britain, is around 50mW. We have been creeping forward very slowly for the past hour and the jam is expected to go on for at least another two hours. So at a rough estimate the total energy expended will be of the order 100MWh, which is enough to run a small town for a whole day. Alternatively, it is enough to power all the mobile phones in the world for over a day. What a waste.

Official estimates vary, but £15 to £20 billion a year is lost in energy costs in Britain through traffic jams alone. On a global basis we must be looking at over £3,000 billion a year, or £500 a year for every man, woman and child on the planet. If we take human down time into account, not to mention the loss of life, we are looking at well over £10,000 billion a year. This is madness. We really should be investing in global and local bandwidth.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk