Ford says company will lead urban transportation effort

Posted by anash June 12, 2008 09:31AM

---

"The company that does the best job of delivering that to the market will have a clear competitive advantage."
- Sue Cischke, Ford's vice president for safety and sustainability.

---

Integrating different means of transportation, information technology and land use is the way to provide sustainable transportation in very large cities and address global warming.

That was the message delivered at a conference at the University of Michigan on Wednesday by representatives of some of the world's most prominent automobile, energy and Internet technology companies.

Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. announced a new business initiative that will incorporate many of the new urban transportation ideas discussed at the conference.

The cell phone will be the backbone of the new strategy, said Sue Cischke, Ford's vice president for safety and sustainability, who explained the concept in more detail.

That would allow people to figure out how to integrate daily trips using, for instance, automobiles, public transit, shared cars, taxis and shared bicycles, she said.

Such systems, Cischke said, will be a necessity in emerging "mega-cities," defined as those of 5 million to 10 million or more people.

Ford will be involved in developing all parts of the new model, including Internet technology, and will make money from car sales, car-sharing, royalties, licensing and other means, she said.

"The company that does the best job of delivering that to the market will have a clear competitive advantage," Cischke said.

David Berdish, Ford's manager for sustainable business development, said Ford would use its expertise in logistics, product design and Internet technology to produce the new business model.

Ford will try the ideas first in Cape Town, South Africa, and in Chennai and Bangalore, India.

The discussion was part of a two-day conference at U-M on the emerging urban transportation market. The conference, which continues today, is hosted by U-M SMART, or Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation.

During a presentation Wednesday evening, Niel Golightly, vice president for downstream communications and sustainable development for Shell International Petroleum Co., said business needs to use a "blueprint" model rather than a "scramble" model to deal with what he called the "hard truths" of surging energy demand, supplies struggling to keep up with demand and environmental stress from energy use.

Energy use will double by the mid 21st century, yet carbon emissions need to be cut in half, he said.

Localized solutions, good policy and collaboration are keys to the blueprint model, Golightly said. The scramble model involves nations simply making sure they have energy available for themselves and paying lip service to environmental issues, he said.

"We're actively advocating for the blueprint scenario," Golightly said.

Reporter John Mulcahy can be reached at 734-994-6858 or jmulcahy@annarbornews.com.

Other speakers included Val Stoyanov, managing partner of Internet business systems at Cisco Systems; Paul Morris, vice president of sustainable planning and development at Cherokee, an investment company specializing in reclaiming environmentally damaged real estate; and Robin Chase, founder and former CEO of ZipCar and now CEO of GoLoco, an Internet-based network that helps people share transportation.

Chase said sharing ownership of cars makes more economical and environmental sense for most people.

"This is a vastly better way of owning and using a car if you live in a city," Chase said.

Susan Zielinski, managing director of SMART, said a new vision for transportation is needed with two-thirds of the word's population expected to live in urban areas by 2025.

"You know that not everybody can have single-occupancy vehicles," Zielinski said.

Audience member Kris Talley of Ann Arbor, an advocate for bicycle use, said she was skeptical when she came to the presentation, but found some useful ideas.

"The (Internet technology) aspect does hold some promise for getting people out of their cars," Talley said.

Amanda Pudenz, a U-M student and member of Transportation Riders United, a Detroit area advocacy group, said statistics presented showing many car owners eager to use mass transit were encouraging.

"That was very interesting because the perception is the opposite," Pudenz said.