Skip to main content

Avis launches mobility lab to test connected cars, Kansas City

Avis Budget Group (ABG) has launched a Mobility Lab to test a fleet of 5,000 connected vehicles across 20 car rental locations which include Kansas City International Airport, Nebraska’s Eppley Airfield and Lincoln Airport. The test aims to provide a seamless connection between Avis’ fleet management platform and its mobile app while creating opportunities to collaborate with municipalities on Smart City initiatives around the world. Passengers renting from airport and off-airport locations can make change
December 7, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

6454 Avis Budget Group (ABG) has launched a Mobility Lab to test a fleet of 5,000 connected vehicles across 20 car rental locations which include Kansas City International Airport, Nebraska’s Eppley Airfield and Lincoln Airport. The test aims to provide a seamless connection between Avis’ fleet management platform and its mobile app while creating opportunities to collaborate with municipalities on Smart City initiatives around the world.

Passengers renting from airport and off-airport locations can make changes, extend their rental as well as lock and unlock the car’s doors from their smartphone. 

The Mobility Lab will provide real-time inventory counts, mileage management and automated maintenance notification. The data collected aims to facilitate the enhancement of Avis’ fleet management capabilities as well as provide scalable benefits to increase the number of its connected vehicles.

Larry De Shon, president and chief executive officer, ABG, said: "Our Mobility Lab in the greater Kansas City area extends our next-generation mobility initiatives. The steps we're taking with connected car and smart technologies will increase customer satisfaction as well as reduce operational costs in the near term, while also preparing us to meet the evolving needs of consumers, entrepreneurs, corporations and governments, like the City of Kansas City, a recognized global leader for its Smart City advancements."

Related Content

  • November 15, 2017
    Bosch’s Perfectly Keyless turns the smartphone into a car key
    Bosch aims to end the ritual hunt for car keys with its Perfectly Keyless digital vehicle access system for vehicles equipped with suitable proximity sensors and control system. Drivers download an app onto their smartphone and connect the car to the app; the smartphone generates a one-off security key that fits the vehicle’s ‘digital lock’. The system then uses a wireless connection to the on-board sensors to measure how far away the smartphone is, and to identify the security key.
  • April 14, 2015
    Automotive players targeting corporate mobility
    Offering services that facilitate an integrated door-to-door business travel management solution is one of the main focus areas for growth and investment in 2015 in the automotive industry, according to Frost & Sullivan. With the business travel market worth US$1.3 trillion (GBTA), there is an increasing trend towards companies using online booking tools and cloud based services to plan, book, and expense/account business trips. Automotive market players are working to have their share of the future corpora
  • September 6, 2017
    Remote remedies help US authorities identify bridge deficiencies
    Every day 185 million vehicles – cars, trucks, school buses, emergency response units - cross one or more of America’s 55,710 'structurally compromised' steel and concrete road bridges, the highest concentration of which are in Iowa (nearly 5,000), Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Nearly 2,000 of these crossings are located on interstate highways, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's recent analysis of the US Department of Transportation's 2016 National Bridge Inventory.
  • February 1, 2012
    Mobile communications could revolutionise traffic management
    Rudolf Mietzner looks at how machine-to-machine technologies and applications will affect the automotive sector in the coming years