A patent called Cooperatively Managed Merge and Pass (CMMP) has been filed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2016, and now it has been granted to Ford Global Technologies.

According to the patent, the idea is to establish a cryptocurrency-fueled technology that enables cars to communicate about traffic patterns. It plans to use a token-based system that has its own ecosystem, as it is designed to work as a vehicle-to-vehicle or car-to-car communication platform, meaning cars could ‘talk to each other’. The system would also collect data on drivers and monitor it, which may raise some concerns in today’s word.

The patent describes a system that operates with individual token-based transactions where units of the cryptocurrency is being traded during the ‘communication’ of the merchant and consumers’ vehicles. Imagine a driver being late and a super-heavy traffic jam, all of us have experienced this many times especially by living in a metropolis such as New-York or Moscow. The system would grant the consumer vehicle a ‘preferential lane access’ during the requested time for a price. On the other hand, the merchant vehicles have to occupy the slower lanes during the traffic patterns in order to facilitate the free passing for the consumer vehicle. Merchant vehicles are paying in CCMP tokens for giving the consumer vehicle the right to pass by them using the agreed lane. The price depends on the time advantage that the consumer is requesting. To make it easier, let the patent talk:

“For example, a driver of a consumer vehicle which is running late for an appointment may request to pass any participating merchant vehicles for a duration of 10 minutes on a particular road or highway for 60 CMMP tokens, at a rate of 10 seconds preferential access per token.”

There is no information whether other cryptocurrencies are going to be accepted for now. Although this is the first concrete attempt by Ford to step in the game, it is well-known that they are not new to the blockchain technology, as last year they started to hiring engineers with blockchain experience in mobile technology.