by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:28 PM ET, Thu November 30, 2017
The Avis Budget Group announced Thursday it has launched the company's first fully connected wireless car fleet in Kansas City, Missouri.
Avis will connect all 5,000 cars in its Kansas City fleet to the internet, other vehicles and to the car rental company's centralized network via wireless technology as officials continue to enhance fleet-management services.
The vehicles in the fleet will also share live data with Kansas City officials in order to sharpen computerized traffic flow models and collaborate on ways to improve tourists' experiences when they rent through Avis.
With the new connected fleet, Avis customers will be able to manage the entire rental process through an app, including locking and unlocking car doors via smartphone or honking the horn when they cannot locate their vehicle.
Avis officials said the company's goal is to make its global fleet fully connected by 2020, which includes almost 400,000 vehicles in the United States. Another benefit of the connected wireless car fleet would be automating manual processes and managing the life cycle of its vehicles.
Vehicle connectivity is also a major building block in the development of self-driving cars. Avis signed a deal in June with Alphabet Inc's self-driving car unit, Waymo, to manage its growing autonomous vehicle fleet.
"As we think about how we're managing our own fleet, we're also looking to see how we can do this for others as well," AVIS CEO Larry De Shon told Reuters. "There's a lot of learning that will come out of this that will be beneficial as we look at fleet management as a service."
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