Sherif Marakby, Ford’s vice president for autonomous and electric vehicles, said in a blog post that the goal of its cooperation with San Francisco-based Lyft is to accelerate “efforts to build a profitable and viable self-driving vehicle business.”

“Lyft has a network of customers, growing demand for rides and strong knowledge of transportation flow within cities,” Marakby wrote. “We have experience with autonomous vehicle technology development and large-scale manufacturing. Both companies have fleet management and big data experience. With our combined capabilities, we believe we can effectively share information to help make the best decisions for the future.”

Ford’s announcement didn’t specify when it would deploy test vehicles to pick up riders on the Lyft network.