Avis
Budget Group today announced that it has teamed up with TransCore
and Highway
Toll Administration (HTA) to supply eZGo Anywhere™ wireless toll
collection transponders for its car and truck rental fleet of vehicles
to serve customers of Avis Rent A Car, Budget Rent A Car and Budget
Truck Rental.
“A tag that can be used to pay tolls wirelessly virtually anywhere in
the country adds a new level of convenience for our renters,” said
Michael Caron, vice president of product and program development for
Avis Budget Group. “We were the first company in our industry to offer
electronic toll collection, and our customers will now be the first to
enjoy this enhanced new service.”
The new tags for Avis and Budget vehicles will be tested and deployed by
HTA, which provides electronic toll payment services to Avis Budget
Group.
“When I learned that the eZGo Anywhere transponder was being introduced
in September of this year, I knew that a rental company’s customers
could really benefit from this new service,” said David Centner,
president and chief executive officer of HTA. “In addition, Avis Budget
Group will benefit from having greater flexibility in managing its
dynamic fleet movements because the transponders work virtually
anywhere.”
The eZGo Anywhere transponders are interoperable with more than 95
percent of all toll systems in the United States, and have quickly
garnered interest of motorists, business travelers, trucking companies,
and rental businesses that want to enjoy the simplicity of wireless toll
payment.
Kelly Gravelle, TransCore’s chief technical officer, explained, “The
fleet management aspects of the rental car model along with the needs of
their customers were among the factors that we considered in creating a
new and better way for travelers to bypass cash toll lanes. With more
and more municipalities and states adding electronic toll systems to
highways, bridges and tunnels, some of which do not even offer a cash
toll option, having a transponder that can go ‘anywhere’ the vehicle
goes is a significant benefit for both drivers and transportation
companies alike.”
Studies show that using electronic toll collection services helps reduce
vehicle emissions, and saves travelers time, making their business
travel more productive and their leisure travel more enjoyable.
About eZGo Anywhere Onboard Unit
The eZGo Anywhere onboard unit (OBU) operates in the 902-928 MHz
frequency range, and is a high-speed, high-performance RFID tag suitable
for electronic toll collection and traffic management applications where
a standard on-board unit is specified. The eZGo Anywhere OBU employs
advanced security techniques that ensure a tag's authenticity while
preventing data corruption and/or alteration. In addition, tag cloning,
spoofing, copying, or duplicating is prevented. eZGo Anywhere OBUs
support factory programming of fixed data fields that are locked at the
factory and cannot be reprogrammed.
eZGo Anywhere is a trademark of TransCore, LLP.
About TransCore
TransCore's 70-year heritage supporting the transportation industry
spans a range of offerings for the toll, traffic management, airport,
parking, access control, rail, intermodal, trucking, and homeland
security markets. With products and installations in 46 countries, more
than 100 patents worldwide, and pioneering applications of RFID and
satellite communications technologies, TransCore's expertise is
unparalleled in the markets it serves. TransCore has more than 2,000
employees in 80 locations throughout the world.
TransCore operates as a unit of Roper Industries. Roper Industries is a
market-driven, diversified growth company with trailing twelve month
revenues of $2.3 billion, and is a component of the Standard & Poor’s
S&P Mid-Cap 400, Fortune 1000, and Russell 1000 Indexes. Roper provides
engineered products and solutions for global niche markets, including
water, energy, radio frequency and research/medical applications.
About Highway Toll Administration (HTA)
HTA was the first electronic-toll-payment service provider to the
car-rental industry and today has an estimated 75% market share by
transaction volume. Through its patent-pending technology and
proprietary services, HTA offers the most comprehensive solutions in its
field, from transponder rentals to video tolling and violations
processing. The company’s customers include Avis, Budget, National,
Alamo and dozens of independents and franchises, such as of Dollar,
Thrifty and Payless. HTA operates under the respective brands of its
customers; for example, Avis eToll, and National and Alamo Toll Pass.
HTA is based in Great Neck, N.Y. For more information, visit www.htallc.com.
Highway Toll Administration is a trademark of Highway Toll
Administration, LLC.
About Avis Budget Group, Inc.
Avis Budget Group (NYSE: CAR) is a leading provider of vehicle rental
services, with operations in more than 70 countries. Through its Avis
and Budget brands, the Company is the largest general-use vehicle rental
company in each of North America, Australia, New Zealand and certain
other regions based on published airport statistics. Avis Budget Group
is headquartered in Parsippany, N.J. and has approximately 28,000
employees. For more information about Avis Budget Group, visit www.avisbudgetgroup.com.