WHY IT RATES: Tourists in Europe who are looking for rental car options should talk to their travel agent about the connected cars provided at Avis Budget Group locations.-Donald Wood, Breaking News Senior Writer.
Avis Budget Group, Inc. announced Monday the addition of 6,000 Peugeot, Citroen and DS vehicles to its connected car rental fleet in Europe, with an additional 5,000 cars expected later this year. These vehicles will operate across the Company's Avis and Budget brands in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as the Maggiore brand in Italy.
Connected cars provide customers with an enhanced and more personalized experience while generating operational and fleet management efficiencies for the company. Avis Budget Group expects all of its Peugeot, Citroën, and DS vehicles to be connected by 2020.
"Leveraging the data from both connected cars and connected travelers enables us to achieve significant cost savings and margin improvements," said Mark Servodidio, president, International, Avis Budget Group. "Better information delivered automatically and in real-time eliminates or reduces many of the manual tasks provided by field personnel, resulting in a better customer experience, a more efficient workforce, and better-maintained vehicles."
Part of the company's commitment to reinventing the car rental experience is ensuring a seamless line of communication from the connected fleet to the Avis mobile app, for example, where travelers can access important information about their rental, change or upgrade their vehicle, locate their vehicle and more. Since the Avis mobile app's transformative launch in July 2016, usage has grown to over 1.25 million transactions from more than 360,000 unique customers and has increased customer satisfaction ratings by 20 percent.
Avis Budget Group will have more than 100,000 connected cars globally this year and has committed to operating a fully connected global fleet by 2020. As part of this effort, earlier this year, Avis Budget Group commenced installations of 50,000 Unified Telematics Platform (UTP) devices, provided by I.D. Systems, more than doubling the Company's existing fleet of connected vehicles. Last month, the Company announced it had partnered with Toyota Motor Company to deploy 10,000 connected vehicles across the United States in 2018.
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