📝 The Answers - MMS

Its what you've all been waiting for

Good day my good friend.

You have been on tenter-hooks since Wednesday, haven’t you? Was your guess about that viaduct correct? Were you right to argue your case about which New York airport Steve Martin tried to fly out from?

All will now be revealed.

Quiz Question Answers

On Christmas Eve, how fast does Santa and his sleigh have to fly to deliver presents to all of the children?

Students at the University of Leicester calculated he would have to fly at 0.5% of the speed of light to do it.

Between March 2020 and May 2022, how many Low Traffic Neighbourhoods were installed in the UK?

According to analysis by inews, it was 189.

Every year, Oslo donates a Christmas tree to London to put up in Trafalgar Square. How far is it from Oslo to London in a straight line (roughly)?

Its 720 miles. Measure it if you disagree.

In its Transport Outlook, the ITF estimates that what percentage of total GDP will be needed to be invested in Core Transport investment to decarbonise the sector every year in its 'Current Ambition' scenario?

ITF’s Transport Outlook 2023 is a great read. And they estimate that we will have to sink 1.7% of the global GDP into transport decarbonisation every year to meet our existing commitments.

When did Coca-cola first use its Christmas truck convoy in an advertisement?

The holiday’s first started coming in 1995. Don’t believe me? Watch it.

In the cycling world, a "long tail" is a type of what?

It’s a cargo bike of course!

In the Christmas movie¹ "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," Steve Martin's character start his journey by trying to fly from what New York airport?

Steve Martin had his cab to the airport stolen by John Goodman so he missed his flight to Chicago. And the airport he missed his flight at was LaGuardia.

In 2022/23, what was the most well-used metro system in the UK outside of London?

This one will cause controversy, as technically Merseyrail and West Midlands are not metros. The former is a commuter heavy rail service - though with plenty of underground elements, and the latter is a light rail service. And between Glasgow and Tyne and Wear, its the Tyne and Wear Metro that is the busiest - and its not even close.

Which of the following modes of transport is the only one to feature in the title of an Official UK Christmas Number 1 Single?

This one I had to stretch for a bit. As the Underground was the right answer due to Girls Aloud’s Sound of the Underground, which is not about the London Underground in the slightest. Another mode of transport has featured as a Christmas Number 1, with Johnnie Ray’s Just Walkin’ in the Rain in 1956, but that wasn’t in the list in the question was it?

According to the UK's National Travel Survey, on average in 2022 what proportion of trips undertaken by an average person in the UK is by some form of public transport?

Its 8%.

The Picture Round

This viaduct? Its the Denby Dale viaduct on the lovely Penistone Line in West Yorkshire. And it is well worth going to see.

The design of the Brompton Bike was first patented in 1979. Three years after the company was founded. Its now Britain’s biggest bike manufacturer.

I’ve mentioned these enough so you should know that this is a Boda-boda. And it is one of the most popular forms of transport in all of Africa.

This is the scene at the Kegworth air disaster, where British Midland Flight 92 crashed just short of the runway at East Midlands airport. This was in 1989, and no passenger has been killed in a crash of a commercial passenger jet in the UK since this disaster.

This network was the brainchild of Blaise Pascal. The first public transport network with set routes, frequencies, fares, and with horse-drawn carriages was a spectacular flop. Oh well, he will just have to be happy with inventing the calculator, developing probability theory. testing concepts on pressure and vacuums, and helping establish fluid dynamics. The waster.

So then, how did you do?

1. Yes, I know, its actually a Thanksgiving movie. My mistake.