Avis Budget Group and Slalom Further Digitize the Car Rental Process with Machine Learning on AWS
Avis Budget Group is a global provider of transportation solutions. Its Avis and Budget brands have more than 11,000 rental locations in approximately 180 countries around the world. Its Zipcar brand, a leading car sharing network, has more than one million members in over 500 cities and towns.
Avis Budget Group sought to become an API-driven company to reinvent the rental car experience, digitize its business, and develop new business models. The company needed help managing and using its data effectively while also scaling globally.
After deciding to build on AWS, Avis Budget Group chose to work with Slalom to complete a successful PoC on AWS and move forward with a pilot project at Newark airport. Using machine learning (ML), the pilot focused on building a practical on-site solution that could address the over- and under-utilization of cars in real-time using an optimization engine built in Amazon SageMaker. Avis Budget Group plans to roll out the optimization engine to all of its North American locations by December of 2020. The company’s speed of development has improved substantially since building on AWS and working with Slalom. Through the PoC, Avis Budget Group found that moving the needle even a small amount on some of its objectives, such as optimizing car mileage, translates into big benefits for the business and for its customers.