Ford's cure for gridlock

There's plenty of evidence that more roads simply lead to more cars. Now, Ford has a vision that will see us make better use of the roads that we already have.

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona last week, Ford executive chairman Bill Ford (yes, he's related) outlined a plan for connected transport. Ford's not just talking cars here; it sees mobile devices implanted in everything from buses and trains through to cars and pushbikes. The aim is to save time, conserve resources and lower emissions.

(Credit: Ford)

In the short term, Ford sees traffic data being used to tell us of traffic jams and the development of car clubs, where we would pick up a vehicle where and when we need it. In the longer term, more and more of us will be using shared vehicles in combination with forms of public transport, based on traffic conditions at the time.

It all makes perfect sense, but it relies, of course, on a central database showing where everyone is, where they've been and where they're off to. It'll be a big selling job to convince us that we should offer so much information to anyone. It'll be almost as difficult as getting us to say goodbye to our private cars, and used shared ones. Unless they're all Porsches, of course.