Car Rental Kiosk

Alamo Rent A Car Installs touch-screen kiosks. From USA Today.

Car rentals go the kiosk route

By Jayne Clark, USA TODAY

Alamo Rent a Car has installed touch-screen kiosks, similar to check-in units used by airlines, at the Las Vegas and Dallas/Fort Worth airports. Speed it up: Alamo Rent a Car touch-screen kiosk. Speed it up: Alamo Rent a Car touch-screen kiosk.

The kiosks, the industry's first, enable customers to do the rental transaction with a swipe of a credit card and driver's license. Process time is cut in half, to about 2½ minutes.

Renters who prefer the human touch can still step up to the counter. But during a month or so of testing, the company has found that "folks who are already conditioned to the airline kiosks are taking to it like ducks to water," says spokesman Charles Pulley.

Alamo will gradually roll out the kiosks in other locations this summer and fall.