Saturday, April 23, 2011

Avis tip toes into something that looks a LOT like carsharing

An article in the current issue of Auto Rental News magazine provides a preview of the latest effort of the car rental industry to respond to changing situation.


The comments were made by Larry De Shon, executive vice president of operations at Avis Budget Group, at the 2011 annaul Car Rental Show .   He described a pilot project Avis will be testing in Seattle - Virtual Car - basically automated car rental

The Virtual Car program will equip a fleet of 2,000 Avis Budget cars in Seattle with an on-board computer and GPS that interacts with the company's Wizard reservations system. 


Chris Brown, editor of Auto Rental News says the system could be used to expand an RAC's local market presence, "Regardless of length of rental-hourly, weekly, whatever-this could be a game changer."  He quotes DeShon, "Now the local market store is anywhere you can park five cars."