Technology, the Great Destroyer of Time, Might Yet be Our Salvation

Written by Sheryl Connelly, global consumer trends and futuring manager, Ford Motor Co. This is one in a series of periodic guest columns by industry thought leaders.

Every year Ford Motor Co. steps back from designing and manufacturing tens of thousands of vehicles to look at where society is headed. This is important intelligence for a company that sells 6.6 million autos a year in more than 150 international markets.

We need to know how the people who buy our vehicles — consumers, business owners, fleet operators — think about the world and its future.

When we began researching the latest edition of our “Looking Further With Ford” trend report, we were struck by a startling data point: People feel pressed for time even as technological advancements produce devices and other goods to improve productivity.

The average American spends 4.7 hours a day staring at a smart screen of some sort. Our 2016 trend study revealed that 65 percent of adults worldwide agree that it was easier to live in the moment before we had all these digital devices. Never in mankind’s history has the human brain been asked to track so many data points. It is no wonder that people feel a true sense of time poverty, another of our 2016 trends.

The great irony of the digital devices that have become so ubiquitous is that they were sold as time-saving tools. Instead, these tools have blurred the boundaries between personal and professional time such that we are living in a perpetual “on-call” state. This isn’t to suggest that all of this technology is going away anytime soon. However, there are widespread efforts to make the technology more seamless, more intuitive and even more anticipatory.

We understand that time also is inextricably tied to mobility.

Across the globe, drivers are spending more and more time commuting or, in the case of fleet operators, driving routes. The duration of time spent on the road heightens the focus on what cars and trucks might deliver beyond mere transportation. For some customers, vehicles serve as a hub of connection, productivity and engagement. For others, they serve as a sanctuary on wheels — a place to escape, decompress and perhaps even find a little peace of mind.

For those who spend much of their day on the road, time poverty does not bode well for the pocketbook. The math is straightforward: More people and cars mean more congestion. Gridlock translates into lost time, wages and opportunities. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, each hour lost in traffic results in $21 of wasted time and fuel. This cost Americans more than $700 on average on an annual basis — more than a week’s earnings for the typical worker.

I thought that Los Angeles and New York City would be the cities with the longest traffic delays in the U.S., but I was wrong. Washington, D.C., commuters lose 74 hours a year because of commuting delays, according to a report from Nationwide Insurance. They spend the equivalent of nine eight-hour days stuck in traffic every single year. Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and New York City commuters lose six to eight workdays on an annual basis.

It extends far beyond the worker to commerce. In April the American Transportation Research Institute released a study that said traffic delays cost the trucking industry $50 billion annually.

Adding more roads seems like a viable solution. However, the people of Beijing might disagree.

The Beijing-Tibet highway is 50 lanes wide. Yet back in 2010, a portion of the highway outside Beijing became site to the longest traffic jam in history. It was 64 miles long and lasted 12 days. Even on a good day, Beijing’s traffic would be considered insufferable by many. It has been reported that the average daily commute lasts five hours.

Some point to technology as a potential solution. Autonomous cars and trucks hold the promise of using connectivity to increase safety and reduce congestion. One study demonstrated how self-driving vehicles could make traffic lights obsolete.

How much longer we will have to wait for autonomous vehicles is anyone’s guess. The technology exists to make it a reality, but many obstacles remain. Issues of liability, insurance, regulation and city planning are only a few of the complex matters that are yet to be resolved. When you add matters concerning data, privacy and security, the timeline stretches out even further.

Nevertheless, I remain eager and hopeful.

As a married mother of two who works full time, rarely gets enough sleep, can’t keep my email inbox under control — or laundry, for that matter — and has a daily commute as long as three hours, I can hardly wait for a future of self-driving cars.

Perhaps that puts me in the minority among Americans and, no doubt, an anomaly among my colleagues at Ford Motor Co. Of course, deep down I know an autonomous future is not going to eradicate my sense of time poverty. However, the mere thought of gaining any amount of time back to my day is a wonderful place to start.

Editor’s note: During a 20-year career with Ford, Connelly has worked in a variety of positions on the trends team and in marketing, sales and service roles