BBC One's Inside Out featured the work of Newcastle University this week as part of a special programme about traffic congestion on the A1.
Experts from the Transport Operations Research Group (TORG) kitted out commuter Suzanne Tait with eye tracking goggles and a bio-belt to assess how driving can impact on our health.
Phil Blythe, Professor of Intelligent Transport and project lead, explained: “As the traffic became more congested around the Angel of the North and Washington Services you could see Suzanne's heart and breathing rates rise and her eyes were all over the place trying to keep track of all the traffic around her.
"And it's not just our health it having an impact on. Every year on the A1 alone the cost of people being delayed and sitting in their cars instead of being at work is around £75million.
"We need to be introducing intelligent traffic management systems to ease congestion and improve the conditions on our roads."
A link to the programme is available here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p6ndy/Inside_Out_North_East_and_Cumbria_03_12_2012/published on: 6th December 2012