Budget Rent a Car, a subsidiary of Budget Group Inc, doesn't have GPS mapping systems in its cars, although it is testing some products for possible use. It does, however, install a certain kind of GPS device in some of its fleet.
"We use a GPS for a very specific purpose -- for vehicle recovery related to theft," said Kimberly Mulcahy, the company's vice president for corporate communications. "We use it on only on select vehicles that have a high theft ratio," she added. "It's not intrusive at all for our customers. It's for the sole purpose of getting our vehicles back" if they are stolen.
At Alamo Rent a Car and National Car Rental, meanwhile, some vehicles are equipped with OnStar systems, which allow customers to activate the device on the road and receive road directions by cell phone.
"The only purposes we use them for are customer safety and convenience," said Cheryl Budd, the senior vice president for corporate communications at the ANC Rental Corp, the parent company of both Alamo and National. "Ninety percent of the usage is for directions, for location, where a customer can say, `I'm lost!'" The GPS provider, not the car rental companies, handle these communications, she said.
In a way, she said, it's not unlike having a spouse in the car with a road map helping you with directions. "Except they don't yell," Budd said.
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