Blue-sky stuff about car hire

This week's Travolution column for our sister title Travel Weekly, which kind of follows on from our post about Qantas last week:

Technology, coupled with the flexibility of the web, is continually pushing the boundaries of what the consumer demands from travel providers.

Qantas, for example, will fill its new Airbus A380 – due in August 2008 – with all sorts of goodies for passengers in every class.

Customers will be able to surf the web, check e-mail and browse destination guides from the Lonely Planet. Laptop owners will be able to do all these things anywhere on the aircraft thanks to wireless access.

This kind of service makes sense for a long-haul carrier such as Qantas, but how will other areas of the industry boost their own offering?

Customer service-driven technology is already everywhere in hotels. But, on a recent holiday to Spain, I was struck by how much opportunity there is for car hire companies.

Family May hired a vehicle via the user-friendly Holidayautos.co.uk (it even won a Travolution Award earlier this year, so the industry likes what they do as well) and had a hassle-free experience – both administratively and on the Spanish roads.

But in terms of boosting the customer experience I wondered whether more could be done. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future a GPS system could be pre-populated with the location of our villa, local attractions (restaurants, museums etc), supermarkets and petrol stations.

Better still: how about the car stereo having all the songs from my MP3 player already installed thanks to an easy upload carried out via the web before leaving the UK?

A lot of this stuff will undoubtedly be rolled out to high-end customers pretty soon (the technology is just around the corner).

But if Qantas is planning technological advances of its own for all passengers, including the great unwashed of economy class, I am looking forward to driving a cute five-door hatchback with all the latest gizmos reasonably soon.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: lastminute car

Nifty vehicle-traffic light gizmo called Travolution

A bit self-indulgent maybe, but one of our regular Google Alerts notified us this week of a scheme being run by the Audi car company, called "Travolution".

What on earth is going on? We can cope with an Edinburgh-based travel agency called Travelution, but do we see competition on the horizon?

Well, no... It appears Audi is developing a project that coordinates traffic light phasing and car movements. In other words: smart technology to allow cars to travel at a regular speed, rather than slowing down and speeding up at junctions.

"'Travolution' is a contraction of the two terms Traffic and Evolution," says the company. Geddit?

"This reduces fuel consumption, pollutant emissions, noise and travelling time.

"We perceive this area to offer considerable potential. And as an innovative car manufacturer, we are playing our part in tapping that potential.

"After all, the reduction of CO2 emissions should be achieved not only by vehicle-related measures but also by appropriate infrastructural measures."

The project is actually being run in conjunction with the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt, the Technical University of Munich and GEVAS Software GmbH.

Well, we're just happy to be, erm, doing our bit...

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

[More on the AutoBlog. The Audi Investor Relations page for Annual Press Conferences is currently down]

Forget iPhones for a minute - think about cars

Most of the tech world has been quite rightly fawning over the worst kept secret in the sector for a few years – Apple’s long awaited move into the mobile communication market, with its iPhone.

[Watch Apple’s Steve Jobs very impressive presentation on a videoclip via the BBC]

But while there is no doubt that the iPhone, and other multi-function handsets, will eventually have a major impact on the travel sector (it has email and web functionality, for starters), another announcement earlier this week could also have similar uses.

Microsoft’s deal with the Ford Motor Company to provide software that will enable drivers and passengers to voice-activate mobile phone calls and music.

[Microsoft announcement here]

The dashboard console, known as Sync, will do all these things but, as one senior company techie tells us, the possibilities for the travel sector are enormous.

Sync – in the future – could allow users to find and a book hotel, on the move, our mole tells us.

There is a general feeling in the car industry that, until now, drivers and passengers have been cocooned from the outside world.

Giving Ford customers – and, eventually, the rest of the vehicle-using world – the opportunity to continue their online habits whilst on the move suddenly seems like a very strong proposition for the travel industry.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution