Skip to main content

Bill Ford discusses future mobility at World Congress

Bill Ford’s thoughts on the future of mobility may be a surprise to many as he told delegates about his concerns over what he termed ‘Global Gridlock’. “You can’t just keep on sending more vehicles into the urban environment, it isn’t going to work.”
September 8, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Bill Ford Executive Chairman of Ford

Bill Ford’s thoughts on the future of mobility may be a surprise to many as he told delegates about his concerns over what he termed ‘Global Gridlock’. “You can’t just keep on sending more vehicles into the urban environment, it isn’t going to work.”

278 Ford’s executive chairman said the current model of urban mobility was under threat and believes it is imperative that in future all transportation modes are interconnected as that is the only way to cope with a growing population in an increasingly urbanised world. However, he said: “Cities are struggling with transportation today and will do so even more in the future and often the money isn’t there to fix the infrastructure – even if they knew how to fix it.

“We need to redefine mobility for the coming century… but there is no one single silver bullet,” he said, adding that many of the individual ‘building blocks’ have been developed but they must be seamlessly integrated. 

When it comes to connected vehicle technology he highlighted major challenges that remain with privacy and bringing the often less tech-savvy older generation on board, saying: “We can’t afford to leave anybody behind.”  

Booth: 425
%$Linker: 2 Asset <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 4 36970 0 oLinkAsset <span class="mouselink">www.ford.com </span> Ford Website true /EasySiteWeb/GatewayLink.aspx?alId=36970 false false%>

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Alert 511 real time congestion alerts launched at ITS World Congress
    October 15, 2012
    RealTraffic Technology will introduce a web-based application called Alert511.com at the ITS World Congress. This application, which generates real-time congestion alerts using video streams available from the web, has been made recently available to commuters in Quebec, Canada. It is based on RealTraffic’s core technology that collects real-time traffic information such as speed and flow using any existing camera network already installed along roads. This versatile solution does not require installation o
  • Meet RideScout
    September 10, 2014
    A new mobile app called RideScout provides Transit as a Service (TaaS) by consolidating multiple public, private and social transit options in a single platform.
  • Janschitz’s X-Cone makes cone deployment quicker
    March 24, 2014
    A new generation traffic cone management system is being shown at Intertraffic on the Janschitz Traffic Services stand. The fully-automatic X-Cone allows a single worker to set out and collect cones (even if the cone is out of position or laying down) and is unaffected by weather or temperature.
  • Autotalks world first in V2V and V2I communications
    October 19, 2012
    Autotalks will present Craton, which it says is the world’s first VLSI for Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and related Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication. The complete functionality of an On-Board-Unit (OBU) is supported by Craton and its RFIC companion Pluton which together form a true automotive-grade V2V transceiver. Craton is capable of authenticating all over-the-air messages, eliminating the need for complex message selection algorithms.