It's a plan to expand transportation options for commuters in Kansas City--and Ford is providing the vehicles.
In a unique collaboration that brings together an automaker, a tech company and a major transit authority, commuters will soon be able to utilize an on-demand shuttle service throughout the city, according to the automaker.
The pilot program is called Ride KC: Bridj.
The pilot program will use a transportation service called Bridj. Riders open the Bridj app, specify where they need to go and choose when they want to leave.
Commuters then walk to a pop-up station—meeting others that are heading in the same direction.
Ford Motor Company will be the exclusive vehicle provider for the program. Ford states in a press release that a fleet of 10 Ford Transit vans will shuttle riders around the city.
The president and CEO of the Kansas City Transportation Authority calls this plan the "introduction of microtransit."
Ride KC: Bridj is set to launch in March and run for a year.
Bridj is up and running in Boston and Washington, D.C., but this Kansas City program is the first to have a transit agency and automaker directly involved.
