Mobility
From Los Angeles to Bangkok and almost everywhere in between, traffic increasingly moves at a crawl, compounding pollution and depleting ever-more scarce and costly resources. Cars, trucks, buses, trains, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians share overtaxed infrastructure, making a simple trip to work or shop an arduous and risky experience. These trends suggest that a mobility model based on an endless increase in privately owned automobiles may be headed for a dead end.
Despite this gloomy outlook, 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. These solutions will also benefit the companies that offer them.
Ford is experimenting with new kinds of mobility products, services and technologies and reaching out to new kinds of customers. In June 2008, we established a new business unit to develop and provide innovative, integrated urban mobility solutions. By engaging local communities and taking a whole-systems approach, we are building capabilities and partnerships and launching prototype urban mobility projects in several global locations.
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.
VOICES
Ford Motor Company, Manager of Sustainable Business Development
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mega-cities will have a population of more than 10 million by 2015