Ford upbeat about shared mobility route in India

Ford Motor Company recently organised the City of Tomorrow Symposium in New Delhi. The idea was to showcase how Indian cities can function better through technology and public-private sector collaboration. Same kind of projects are planned in cities such as Indore and Chennai. Rajendra Rao, CEO, Ford Smart Mobility LLC, spoke to BusinessLine on the idea behind the Symposium and future mobility in Indian cities. Excerpts:

What was the objective of bringing the Symposium to India?

Our objective is to set up a full mobility footprint in India. Right now, we have to show our commitments to shuttles as well as drive sharing and car sharing services. We are gearing up to accelerate our conversations and talk to other cities in India. We are aware of a portfolio of solutions that a city would really want to implement.

Do you believe that changing the car ownership mindset will be a challenge in India?

The city of tomorrow is going to have a different way of transportation where shared mobility will allow you to execute the journey in a far more aspirational way than what we can imagine. Today, we may be thinking about giving up the benefit of the vehicle but in the future, there will actually be a safer, more reliable and cost savvy way of completing a journey.

Ride sharing will be integrated into that experience, and you may need your vehicle as well to complete the journey. As cities grow bigger with more people living in them, I think the footprint of shared mobility will be very high compared to what it is today.

Can you cite some instances on the kind of work Ford is doing here?

With significant younger demographics and smartphone penetration, there is an opportunity to skip the smartcard and get into a mobile ticketing solution. We are going to launch the shuttle service in Chennai to try and understand how this experience will be in comparison to the public/personal transportation services. This Chennai initiative will be earmarked for our employees and there is no decision yet on who will partner.

Will your project be confined to mobility solutions?

Our focus right now is on mobility. Our view is that smart traffic lights, smart sidewalks for parking, smart lighting etc are all IoT (Internet of Things) investments that must overlap with mobility projects.

All this is in the context of smart city projects, and Niti Aayog has also come out with a report on transforming mobility. We subscribe to that and do not want to hurry into any specific mobility solution for a city.

What kind of data analytics are taken care of from your end?

If I take the example of New York, we did an analysis to look at journeys and then planned on the new routes to be launched in our ride-sharing platform. The idea was to improve flow while reducing congestion/pollution and yet add capacities that integrated with public transport.

Based on this analysis, we launched five routes in New York and shared it with the city to help us to access certain privileges such as names, parking and so on. We are probably going to bring all of those capabilities to India. Our data and analytics team can get access to insights such as road conditions, availability of parking, public transit footprints, ridership and so on. These can be shared with the city to give an idea of how much innovation we can provide based on this data analysis.

Who are your partners in India for this drive?

We work closely with Zoomcar right now. However, I do not want to emphasise on any single partner because what we are focused on is the end user and helping citizens get real value.

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