The automotive industry’s century-old shop has played a “smart mobile trip”.

Last year, Ford partnered with Indian car-sharing company Zoomcar to launch a smart mobile trip experiment in Bangalore, India, to test the "vehicle sharing" model - within small groups such as corporate colleagues, apartment neighbors and family members. Establish a sharing mechanism in which multiple drivers share a car.

Ford aims to use this model to help consumers who are temporarily unable to afford a car but want to enjoy the benefits of using the car. Similar to this capture of mobile travel needs, the car industry’s “hundred-year-old shop” does A series of attempts have been made and these are collectively referred to as "smart mobile plans."

Relative to the fixed-mass traditional automotive industry, public transport services based on travel demand clearly have a larger market. These are not areas where established car manufacturers are good at, and most of them have not stepped in, but Ford has Looks like it's playing on this road.

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) held in Shanghai recently, Ford announced some new innovations: the Panda Dynamic Train project in Dalian, China, and the latest AppLink partner.

Ford cooperated with the shuttle bus company Panda in China and the researchers from Tsinghua University to develop a set of itinerary planning tools to provide users with efficient travel services in peak and valley hours, and to use the algorithm as a flexible vehicle for the team. Design real-time routes and stops.

The "Panda Dynamic Shuttle" service focuses on three scenarios: peak traffic times with the most demand for travel, days with low demand for vehicles, and late nights with limited public transport resources.

During peak hours, similar to a traditional bus, the shuttle bus will run on a fixed route. The user can book the seat of the bus and indicate the pick-up and drop-off points at the same time so that the bus stops only when needed. Like buses, the Ford Transit Shuttle can also use Dalian's BRT as well as the city's 20 bus lanes.

Compared to an average of 13 stops on a one-way route for a conventional bus, the Ford shuttle usually has only 6 to 7 stops per route, and can select routes based on user demand. Therefore, the bus runs 35% faster than a bus on the entire route.

During the off-peak hours between morning and evening, the shuttle service is mainly in two key areas, there is no fixed route, but it is based on the application on the booking conditions, similar to the ride service.

At night, when the public transport service in Dalian stops, the Panda Dynamic Shuttle will continue to provide services. At this time, the Ford Transit Shuttle will use a similar route to the day bus service, but the stop will be flexibly arranged according to the user's needs. All-day users can use the app to know the real-time location of the shuttle, especially for passengers who are late at night or in a hurry.

The Ford AppLink platform added four new partners, including three China and one Thai app, to use voice commands via the SYNC system to bring consumer favorite mobile apps to the car.

Users of the SYNC system in China can add new usage:

• Airline Travel: Air Travel Assistant, through voice control or in-car display, allows users to view real-time flight information including delays, cancellations, weather changes, departures and arrival times. In addition to the on-board environment, the app also supports online check-in to display electronic boarding passes.

• Flush: Investment and wealth management applications that can display real-time prices for stocks, funds, bonds, commodities, and foreign exchange. Inside the car, the app can provide stock market news broadcasts via audio. In addition to the automotive environment, the application can also provide estimates of investment income, helping users to automatically complete the buy and sell.

• Driving to ask: Driving is a virtual assistant controlled by Chinese voice commands, positioning services, GPS navigation, air tickets, train tickets and hotel reservations, job search, housing rentals, major events and movie ticket reservations, weather information, Social sharing and other functions in one. After connecting with the vehicle, the user can use natural speech to listen to music, open navigation at a certain place or point of interest, and understand weather information through the application.

Asked to provide relevant technical support by going out and asking questions. As early as a few months ago, Titanium geeks learned to go out and ask questions to enter the field of car networking, and committed to landing artificial intelligence technology in the automotive field. This time the service will be integrated into Ford AppLink also confirms this news.

Actually, Ford had already released a smart mobile plan as early as the 2015 CES in the United States. Over the past year and a half, the automotive industry's "hundred-year-old shop" has been pushing the plan on various occasions.

Although the method varies from region to region, it can be seen that Ford is indeed a travel program tailored to the unique needs of users in each city. For example, a smart mobile travel program unique to the Chinese market: Tintin parking, the owner through the SYNC system, without the need for manual operation, you can control the use of parking spaces, designed to ease the parking pain in major cities.

Tintin Parking CEO Shen Ao told a titanium geek reporter that "Ford's SYNC system will directly bring us tens of millions of users. In the process of adapting SYNC, Ford gave full support to engineers and testing, and will give To some interfaces, but the main technical development work is still done by us."

The irreversible trend of new energy vehicles and self-driving cars has caused the traditional gasoline depots to feel deeply at a crisis. Consumers' demands for intelligence and interconnection are also getting higher and higher, and Ford is clearly aware of this.