Mobility

Our goal is to make mobility affordable in every sense of the word – economically, environmentally and socially. Today, there are 6.7 billion people in the world. By 2050, there will be 9 billion people, 75 percent of whom will live in urban areas. Forty of the world's 50 largest cities will be in countries outside of North America, Europe or Japan. These mega-cities – urban areas of 5–10 million people or more – will be increasingly affluent and increasingly crowded (see "Mega-Cities: The Icon of Personal Mobility Challenges").

Residents of these cities will want – and deserve – the same freedom of mobility that many in developed nations enjoy today. But, because of energy costs, climate change concerns, infrastructure constraints and resource limits, business as usual will not work.

Many cities are already imposing regulations to restrict the use of private transportation. For example, London, Vienna and Bucharest have established anti-congestion policies in the form of a tax on personal vehicle usage into the city. Legislation is pending in Berlin, Paris and Tokyo to enforce zero emission public transportation. Adding more and more privately owned cars to a mega-city may not be possible, and certainly isn't practical. A car stuck in traffic wastes time and energy, a car sitting in a parking garage all day while its owner works wastes a valuable asset.

We need to explore sustainable alternatives. We believe that creative collaboration and innovative technologies and services can yield new solutions, and that these solutions can harness the benefits of mobility while reducing its environmental and social impacts. Information technology shows promise for overcoming barriers to integrated urban mobility systems that rely on multiple modes of transportation seamlessly tied together. Ford has been a leader in exploring the potential for these models to contribute to solutions, especially in urban areas (see "What Is New Mobility?").

During 2008, we intensified our focus on the challenges of urban areas in both developed and developing countries. Ford cosponsored a major forum on mobility at the University of Michigan that brought together leading thinkers from around the world to share knowledge and insights, and plan collaborative projects. We concluded our involvement in pilot mobility projects in Cape Town, South Africa, and Bangalore and Chennai, India, gaining important insights that will aid us in the future. And we refocused our mobility efforts on products like electric vehicles, bringing together fleet managers, utilities and city leaders to encourage use of these technologies in alignment with the priorities of the new U.S. administration.

This section describes the actions Ford is taking to deepen our understanding of the future of mobility and to develop and test sustainable mobility solutions for all of our global customers.