American/Indonesian author Seno Gumira Ajidarma once joked that the average commuter in Jakarta spends 10 years of his life in traffic, but recent research indicates he may not be too far from the mark. The UK’s Guardian reports the city has the worst traffic in the world based on satellite navigation data, which revealed the average driver starts and stops more than 33,000 times a year. An estimated 70% of the city’s air pollution comes from idling vehicles. It typically takes two hours to drive 40km to the centre of Jakarta from Bogor, the largest of the satellite cities where many office workers live. Sadly, that is not much worse than parts of Cape Town, although with the population of Greater Jakarta expected to increase from about 30-million today to more than 40-million by 2040, local planners surely have a greater chance of finding a solution. Enter the age of the robotantrum A robot on display at an exhibition in China injured a passer-by this week after "attacking" a displ...
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