Transportation Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
This transportation trivia quiz has 109 free questions with answers and covers every way people and goods get around: the first powered flight at Kill Devil Hills, the Model T rolling off the assembly line, the world's first underground railway, the bullet train, the container ship, the hovercraft and the humble bicycle. It also takes in canals, bridges, roundabouts, traffic lights, seat belts and the escalator, because moving people is about infrastructure as much as vehicles. About a third of the questions are easy enough for a family car ride, a third are pub-quiz medium, and the rest will test transport enthusiasts and engineers. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference page, so you can settle arguments with confidence. Play it in the app or use it to run your own quiz night on planes, trains and automobiles.
30 of 109 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Wright Flyer made the first sustained powered, controlled flight in December of which year?
1903
On 17 December 1903 the Wrights flew the Flyer four times near Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, the longest flight lasting 59 seconds; the aircraft now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum.
Q 02What was the nickname of the Ford Model T?
Tin Lizzie
The Model T earned the nickname Tin Lizzie; over 15 million were built between 1908 and 1927, and Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth roll off the line at Highland Park, Michigan.
Q 03Which car overtook the Model T as the best-selling car in history in 1972?
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle passed the Model T's total on 17 February 1972; production of the Type 1 finally ended at the Puebla plant in Mexico on 30 July 2003, after 21,529,464 cars.
Q 04Japan's first Shinkansen line opened in 1964, shortly before which event?
The Tokyo Summer Olympics
The Tōkaidō Shinkansen began service on 1 October 1964, nine days before the Tokyo Summer Olympics opened, linking Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka.
Q 05How many passengers died in Shinkansen derailments or collisions during its first 50 years?
Zero
Zero: from the 1964 opening through 2014 the Shinkansen carried billions of passengers without a single passenger death from a derailment or collision, despite a 2004 earthquake derailment near Niigata.
Q 06The world's first underground passenger railway opened in London in which year?
1863
The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon, using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives.
Q 07The Johnston typeface used across the London Underground was created in which year?
1916
Edward Johnston completed his sans-serif alphabet in 1916, three years after Frank Pick of the Underground Group commissioned it; the lettering and the roundel became the network's lasting branding.
Q 08Which country began building the Panama Canal in 1881 before abandoning the project?
France
France started digging in 1881 through a private company; engineering problems, malaria and yellow fever ended the effort in 1889, and the United States took over in 1904 and opened the canal in 1914.
Q 09Ships transiting the Panama Canal are lifted by locks 26 metres up into which artificial reservoir?
Gatun Lake
Gatun Lake sits 26 metres above sea level; it was created by damming the Chagres River so ships could cross much of the isthmus afloat instead of through a dug channel.
Q 10Which two airlines owned and operated Concorde fleets in scheduled service?
British Airways and Air France
British Airways and Air France each bought their own Concorde fleets and flew them from 1976 to 2003; Braniff only leased the jets for a subsonic Dallas-Washington interchange in 1979-80.
Q 11Concorde's regular service speed was capped at what to extend the life of its airframe?
Mach 2.02
Concorde cruised at Mach 2.02, about 2,180 km/h; flying faster would have pushed the aluminium alloy skin beyond roughly 127°C at the nose, shortening the airframe's fatigue life.
Q 12Which former bicycle-maker's company, founded by J. K. Starley, later became a British car brand?
Rover
J. K. Starley's Rover safety bicycle of 1885 set the modern bicycle pattern; his firm took the Rover name and built its first car in 1904, becoming a long-lived British marque.
Q 13The Segway self-balancing transporter was invented by whom?
Dean Kamen
Dean Kamen, the inventor also known for the iBOT stair-climbing wheelchair, unveiled the Segway on Good Morning America in Bryant Park on 3 December 2001 after months of breathless speculation.
Q 21Which policeman developed the first electric traffic light in Salt Lake City in 1912?
Lester Wire
Lester Wire, a Salt Lake City police officer, built a two-colour electric signal in 1912; two years later the American Traffic Signal Company installed a version at East 105th and Euclid in Cleveland, Ohio.
Q 22Nils Bohlin developed the modern three-point seat belt for which car maker, which made it standard in 1959?
Volvo
Volvo fitted Bohlin's three-point belt as standard on the Amazon and PV544 in 1959 and opened the patent to rival makers free of charge, so the design spread across the industry.
Q 23Which US president signed the 1956 act that created the Interstate Highway System?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Q 14The Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937 while docking at a naval air station in which US state?
New Jersey
Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey was the landing site on 6 May 1937; Herbert Morrison's anguished radio report, recorded there, was broadcast the next day and became one of the century's most famous recordings.
Q 15What gas filled the Hindenburg?
Hydrogen
Hydrogen filled the Hindenburg's 16 gas cells because the United States, the only large helium producer, would not export helium to Nazi Germany; the flammable gas made the 1937 fire catastrophic.
Q 16Which airline put the Boeing 747 into commercial service in January 1970?
Pan Am
Pan Am, which had pushed Boeing to build the jumbo and ordered 25 in 1966, flew the first scheduled 747 service from New York to London on 22 January 1970.
Q 17Who led the design team for the Boeing 747?
Joe Sutter
Joe Sutter, pulled off the 737 programme in 1965, led the roughly 4,500 engineers nicknamed 'the Incredibles' who took the 747 from design to first flight in under three years.
Q 18The Channel Tunnel connects Folkestone in England with which French town?
Coquelles
The French terminal is at Coquelles, just outside Calais; Queen Elizabeth II and President Mitterrand opened the 50.45 km tunnel on 6 May 1994, about a year behind schedule.
Q 19The Trans-Siberian Railway runs from Moscow to which Pacific port?
Vladivostok
The line ends at Vladivostok on Russia's Pacific coast, 9,289 km and about six days by train from Moscow; the route was completed entirely on Russian soil when the Amur bridge at Khabarovsk opened.
Q 20The world's first traffic lights, installed in December 1868, stood outside which building?
The Houses of Parliament in London
Railway engineer J. P. Knight's signal outside the Houses of Parliament in London used semaphore arms by day and red and green gas lamps by night, worked by a policeman; it exploded within a month, injuring its operator.
Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act on 29 June 1956, having been impressed by German autobahns in the war; construction later displaced roughly a million people and sparked 'freeway revolts'.
Q 24In 1956 Malcom McLean loaded 58 containers onto which converted tanker?
SS Ideal X
The SS Ideal X, a converted Second World War T2 tanker, sailed from Newark to Houston on 26 April 1956 with 58 containers on deck; by 2009 roughly 90% of non-bulk cargo moved in containers.
Q 25Which crossing took the Golden Gate's title as the world's longest suspension span in 1964?
Verrazzano-Narrows
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, opened on 21 November 1964 between Staten Island and Brooklyn, had a 1,298 m main span, 18 m longer than the Golden Gate's; it held the record until the Humber Bridge in 1981.
Q 26Which French diplomat formed the company that built the Suez Canal, opened in 1869?
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand de Lesseps, a former French consul in Egypt, founded the Suez Canal Company in 1858 and saw the canal opened in November 1869; unlike Panama, Suez is a lock-free sea-level waterway.
Q 27Stephenson's Rocket won which 1829 locomotive competition?
The Rainhill Trials
The Rainhill Trials of October 1829 were staged by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to settle whether moving locomotives or rope-hauling stationary engines should work the line; Rocket won the £500 prize.
Q 28In which year was Karl Benz's Patent-Motorwagen, considered the first practical car, patented?
1886
Karl Benz received German patent 37435 for his three-wheeled Patent-Motorwagen on 29 January 1886; his firm Benz & Cie. in Mannheim grew into the world's largest car maker by 1900.
Q 29The Montgolfier brothers made their living making what?
Paper
The Montgolfiers ran the family paper mill at Annonay; their first public balloon, flown there on 4 June 1783, was sackcloth lined with three thin layers of their own paper.
Q 30Which airline took the first delivery of the Airbus A380 in October 2007?
Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines took delivery of the first A380 on 15 October 2007 and flew it from Singapore to Sydney ten days later; the double-decker is certified for up to 853 passengers.