Six years ago dutchman ruben beugels was on an amsterdam tram that broke down , leaving him stuck in an out-of-the way place , and late for an appointment when he couldn 't quickly find another means of transport .
The area covered in their experiment included 13 sets of traffic lights , 68 pedestrian crossings , seven bus and tram lines crossing the network every 10 minutes , and a train station handling over 13000 passengers a day .
Six years since he was left stranded by the tram , beugels cobbled together a consortium of partners , distributors and sponsors from both private and public sectors , including the city of amsterdam , the national railway and sustainable bank triodos , which provided half of the financing .