Traffic, as a worldwide phenomenon has existed almost as long as the horse and cart.

Most people will experience a traffic jam in their life of over 4 hours, and over half will experience up to fifteen minutes of traffic a day.

The effect on productivity and available time makes it one of the biggest problems worldwide.

However, it will be of some comfort to those stuck in daily traffic jams that traffic could be stopped as soon as 2020.

A number of factors are at play here: better urban planning, falling car ownership, and the development of GPS routing apps that send cars down different routes depending on road load.

Most surprisingly though, a university lab in Cambridge believes we are closer than we think to developing teleportation as a means of travel.

At the moment tests involving lab mice have only been successful over short distances (from the outside to the centre of a maze) and is non-instantaneous.

The process involves the evaporation of matter on one end and its reconstruction at the other by a process they call “quantam rejigging”.

The Cambridge scientists believe that they could take mice as far as Bury St. Edmunds (28 miles) by the end of next year, with trials with humans to begin shortly after.

The lab expects that the alternative mode of transport could be ready by as soon as 2026, offering some hope for those still living the daily frustration of traffic.

— NFN's Oliver Frost contributed to this report.