What hasn’t cryptocurrency[1] taken over yet? For one thing, vehicles, but this may not be the case for long. Vehicle manufacturer Ford Motor Company wants to use cryptocurrency technology to infiltrate cars so that they can communicate with each other while driving.
Bitcoin.com reports[2] that Ford has been granted a patent which will allow the company to do so. The patent was granted to Ford Global Technologies, LLC, the subsidiary in charge of owning, managing, and commercializing patents and copyrights for its parent company Ford Motor.
The patent is for “apparatus and methods” that will facilitate “vehicle-to-vehicle cooperation to marshal traffic.” Translation: to help reduce traffic congestion.
The process will use what they’ve called a “Cooperatively Managed Merge and Pass (CMMP) system.” The CMMP system will incorporate cryptocurrency, allowing the cars to communicate with one another. How? Well, that’s where things get pretty technical. Let’s try to sum it up.
>> More Crypto News: TRON (TRX), EOS, and Skycoin (SKY) – Going Green[3]
Participating vehicles are defined as either a consumer vehicle or a merchant vehicle. The consumer vehicles are the ones that drive at higher speeds in less-occupied traffic lanes and can merge and pass freely when needed. The merchant vehicles voluntarily occupy slower traffic lanes and allow consumer vehicles to merge into their lanes and pass when requested. The CMMP token is used to authorize the transaction of merging and passing. Merchant vehicles receive CMMP tokens from consumer vehicles.
The application of this system seems to be the most useful when someone is running late. They can become a consumer vehicle and request to pass participating merchant vehicles so that they can move more quickly through traffic.
The idea of this system is good in principle. Reducing traffic congestion would be a load off of everyone’s case. However, for it to work as intended, to help reduce congestion and get you places more quickly, I think every single car on the road would have to be participating. Frankly, I don’t see that happening anytime soon, given how much resistance is still put up towards crypto.
Also, there would need to be a balance of consumer vehicles and merchant vehicles. Have you ever been in a traffic jam? Nearly everyone loses patience and just wants to get going, so, once the frustration begins, how many people would actually willingly volunteer to be a merchant vehicle? If everyone’s trying to be a consumer vehicle, to pass each other, the system kind of breaks down.
Those are my thoughts. What do you think about Ford’s plans?
>> Check out Crypto Madness: Omnitude ICO vs. Bethereum ICO[4]
Featured image: insure the box[5]
If You Liked This Article Click To Share
References
- ^ cryptocurrency (cryptocurrencynews.com)
- ^ reports (news.bitcoin.com)
- ^ More Crypto
