Toyota and Servico Pacific Inc. Test New Car Sharing Technology

An important part of Toyota’s Mobility Services Platform (MSPF) is collecting software and services that will offer different functions which allow a more convenient mobility experience. When this program finishes, Servico, the distributor of Toyota vehicles on Hawaii, will be using car share technology in order to launch a new car share business in Honolulu, by the end of 2017.

This car-sharing application will support driver confirmation and identification as well as payment and fleet management for car-sharing businesses. This also includes a Smart Key Box (SKB) which allows users to lock or unlock their vehicles via a smartphone. This appication was developed and managed by Toyota Connected North America (TC), the worldwide technology strategy business unit for Toyota.

“This new application demonstrates the power of combining Toyota’s unrivaled global manufacturing and technology capacity with dealers’ extensive local operations to provide consumers with more convenient options to move,” said Shigeki Tomoyama, President of Connected Company, Toyota Motor Corporation.

“This successful launch of the MSPF represents the next generation in car-sharing platforms and is Toyota’s global foundation for fleet management, car-sharing, and the future of mobility,” said Zack Hicks, CEO of Toyota Connected North America. “Its powerful and flexible API based platform allows us to quickly adapt to new market opportunities and support deployment of locally-tailored mobility services.”

Toyota has been working with Getaround on this car-sharing pilot program in San Francisco, California since January, proving availability and usability of the SKB. Thanks to the pilot test with Servico, Toyota keeps on improving this car sharing application and MSPF. Toyota also plans to start working with other dealers and distributors, aiming for safer and more useful customer central mobility services.

First introduced in 2016, TC was built to significantly expand Toyota’s capacity in vehicle machine learning, data science and contextual data services development, providing various computer and data science services across Toyota’s global operations.