Ford launches city solutions team and expands into urban mobility services

Car-maker buys ride-sharing service and prepares a bike-share launch in San Francisco

Ford has bough the San Francisco-based Chariot ride-sharing service and is preparing to launch the GoBike cycle hire service in the Californian city

Ford is to launch a new City Solutions team to work with cities around the world on their transportation needs. This is one element of a series of urban mobility initiatives, including ride-sharing and bike-sharing, announced by the US-based car-maker.

The City Solutions team to work with cities on expanding mobility services worldwide as part of Ford Smart Mobility LLC. John Kwant – who has worked with several global cities during his Ford career as part of the company’s government affairs and global strategy teams – has been hired to lead the effort as vice president, Ford City Solutions.

The US-based car-maker says that it will use “a joint discovery process” to work with city authorities to propose, pilot and develop mobility solutions tailored to the needs of their communities. Ford said that discussions are  under way with "several global cities". The first city with which it is actively working is San Francisco, where Ford is acquiring Chariot, a crowd-sourced shuttle service, and collaborating with bike-sharing provider Motivate.

“We’re expanding our business to be both an auto and a mobility company, and partnering with cities on current and future transportation needs is the next major step,” said Mark Fields, Ford president and CEO. “For more than 100 years, Ford has been part of the community and the trusted source for automotive transportation. Now, we want to work with communities to offer even more transportation choices and solutions for people – for decades to come.”

Ford’s interest in mobility services is built around its recognition that half the world’s population lives in cities, a number is expected to grow to 60% by 2030, said Jim Hackett, chairman, Ford Smart Mobility LLC, the company’s subsidiary created to design, build, grow and invest in emerging mobility services.  

“Cities globally are dealing with increased congestion, a growing middle class and environmental issues – all of which can be alleviated by developing mobility solutions fine-tuned to the unique challenges of each location. At the same time, by expanding our business model to include new forms of transportation – from bikes to dynamic shuttles and more – we are introducing new customers to Ford and creating new revenue and profit opportunities for the future.”

Ford’s acquisition of the Chariot ride-sharing will serve as the cornerstone for what is being billed “a new global shuttle services business”. Ford plans to expand Chariot beyond San Francisco to at least five additional markets in the next 18 months.

Started in 2014, Chariot operates nearly 100 Ford Transit shuttles along 28 routes throughout San Francisco Bay Area. Today, Chariot’s routes are crowd-sourced based on rider demand. In the future, they will operate dynamically – using data algorithms to map efficient routes to best serve the real-time mobility needs of communities, said Ford.

The Chariot shuttles are intended to fill the gap between taxi and bus services – providing an on-demand, point-to-point transportation. A private study for Ford conducted by KPMG suggests that for each dynamic shuttle placed into service during peak travel times, urban congestion could be reduced by up to 25 fewer vehicles.

“Chariot’s mission from day one has been to solve the commute by providing a mass transit solution that is fast, reliable and affordable for people living in today’s cities,” said Ali Vahabzadeh, Chariot chief executive and co-founder. “We started our Chariot service with Ford’s 15-passenger vehicles and continue to use Ford Transit shuttles to this day. We couldn’t be more thrilled to be Ford Smart Mobility’s first acquisition and leverage its leadership in transportation to fulfill Chariot’s goals worldwide.”

Ford is also set to launch a cycle hire service in partnership with Motivate, a bike share provider. Ford and Motivate are working with city officials to add new stations and increase the number of bikes to 7,000 in the Bay Area by the end of 2018. Ford and Motivate are launching GoBike in partnership with Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The project will see bike share offered in San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.

Jay Walder, chief executive of Motivate, said: “The partnership with Ford shows that bike share is no longer alternative transportation; it is central to creating smart, on-demand mobility that represents our values for equity and sustainability.”

The Ford GoBike will be accessed by users through the FordPass platform. Ford said it plans to develop technologies to use data collected from the bikes to build an interconnected mobility network. This could include real-time data, such as weather conditions, usage patterns and bike availability, to optimise commutes.