At the Intelligent Transportation Systems World Congress (ITS) in Orlando, Florida, in October, Ford Motor Company Chairman Bill Ford proclaimed that it’s time for the auto industry to snatch the phrase “Information Superhighway” away from the IT industry and refer instead to a world where cars “talk” to one another to avoid accidents or run more efficiently and even monitor the health of their drivers.

This connected transportation future leverages digital communication technology to extend far beyond the individual vehicle using a blend of WiFi, GPS and cellular connectivity, on-board technology and cloud-based computing. If auto manufacturers work together to make this vision a reality, Ford says, a connected vehicle revolution could transform personal mobility while making our roads safer, smarter and greener.

Mr. Ford was addressing a gathering of leading transportation policy makers, technology and business professionals. The ITS congress was focused on cost-effective, practical deployment and innovation that provides users with new levels of safety, reliability, convenience, accessibility, and choice.

The path towards the future Mr. Ford described starts with connected vehicles that are each essentially WiFi hotspots able to wirelessly “talk” to other vehicles within a 300-meter range and also share data with the cloud. Ford sees this connected vehicle functionality expanding beyond the current “infotainment” applications that allow us to integrate functionality from our phones, stereos and in-car navigation. Future vehicle connectivity will open up new ways for us to relate to our cars, and for our cars to relate to an overall intelligent transportation network.

For example, cars will be able to not only sense other WiFi enabled cars, but know what they’re up to: If a vehicle two cars ahead of you slams on its brakes, your car can pick up the signal and warn you before you’d be able to see brake lights, allowing you to react that precious fraction of a second faster. Or if cars ahead begin switching on their windshield wipers or slow down quickly because of an accident, they can “pass back” warnings from vehicle to vehicle to the cars behind, alerting each of them to changes in weather or traffic up ahead. The system could work with Google Prediction API (announced in May) to suggest alternate routing that might be more time efficient or use the least amount of fuel based on real-time knowledge of the road ahead.

Also leveraging Google technology, Ford demonstrated its “Green Zone” concept, which allows a hybrid or plug-in hybrid vehicle to automatically switch into all electric mode when the system senses, via GPS, that the car has entered a pre-defined area, such as a school zone or a National Park, where vehicle noise and emissions should be kept to a minimum. Combining Prediction and Green Zone concepts would enable a hybrid or plug-in hybrid vehicle to automatically optimize its battery use and performance characteristics for a known route.

Mr. Ford sees these as examples of a vision for a connected vehicle future that would allow the U.S. automotive industry to lead once again. “Thirty years ago,” he said, “the auto industry was content to comply with regulations, rather than provide leadership.“

Today, however, “automobile manufacturers are not content to just comply anymore. In fact we are competing to embrace sustainability. At Ford, we placed a big and audacious bet to be the leader in fuel efficiency, to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020 (Note: this is 3 percent higher than the US Administration’s commitment to the UNFCCC). We kept investing during the ‘dark days’ so that in 2012 we could introduce an EV like the C-Max.” Mr. Ford also emphasized that Ford currently has 12 vehicles with best-in-class fuel economy and four vehicles that achieve over 40 MPG.

But Ford acknowledged we still have a long way to go. “There are challenges ahead that go far beyond the individual vehicle,” he said. “There are currently one billion cars on the road, with four billion expected by mid-century. Used unwisely, this could lead to ‘global gridlock’ – a never-ending traffic jam. We need to rise to the challenge and create an intelligent transportation system.”