Ford Acquires Chariot and Motivate To Solve Urban Transportation Issues

If you were wishing that a major automaker would take it upon itself to find solutions for easing congestion on roads, today is your lucky day. Ford is teaming up with major global cities, starting from San Francisco, to solve issues leading to traffic congestion and help people in moving around more easily. To this end, it has announced the acquisition of Chariot, a crowd-sourced shuttle service based in San Francisco. The blue oval brand is also collaborating bike-sharing provider Motivate to expand its reach to city centres. Internally, Ford is establishing a City Solutions team to work with cities on their transportation needs.

"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."

"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," said Jim Hackett, Chairman, Ford Smart Mobility LLC, the company's subsidiary created to design, build, grow and invest in emerging mobility services. "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 Chariot (pending closing formalities) will be pivotal for its new global shuttle services business which is to be expanded to five additional markets (aside from San Francisco) in the next 18 months. Chariot was started in 2014 and operates close to a hundred Ford Transit shuttles on 28 routes across San Francisco Bay area. Right now, Chariot's routes are crowd-sourced. In the future, they will use data algorithms to map efficient routes to serve real-time mobility needs of communities.

"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 co-founder and CEO. "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 and Motivate are working with San Francisco officials to add new bike stations and increase the number of bikes to 7,000 in the Bay area by the end of 2018. When it launches in 2017, users will be able to access Ford GoBike through the FordPass platform.

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"A transportation revolution is coming to the Bay Area," said Jay Walder, CEO of Motivate. "This unique 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. Thanks to the partnership of Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville, bike share will soon be available for all in the Bay Area."

As far as the new City Solutions team is concerned, it has been tasked to work with cities on expanding mobility services worldwide as part of Ford Smart Mobility LLC. The team will address the reality that each city's transportation ecosystem poses a unique set of challenges. Through a joint discovery process, Ford City Solutions will work with municipalities to propose, pilot and develop mobility solutions tailored to the community. Discussions are already under way with several global cities.