Hertz has partnered with Clear to create a biometrics-based Fast
Lane at its Atlanta airport location. It plans to replicate the lane at a few
dozen other locations over the next year. It's been operating for about a week
and allows travelers who are members of both Clear and Hertz Gold Plus Rewards
to exit the location with either a fingerprint or facial recognition rather
than having to show identification. That shaves the time required to exit from
about two minutes to 30 seconds or less, Hertz chief marketing officer and EVP
Jodi Allen said. "At Hertz, we spend a lot of time understanding what our
customers are interested in, and speed is absolutely critical," Allen said.
"Based on that, we entered this partnership with Clear."
The partnership is Clear's first partnership with a car
rental company and its first use of facial recognition, as opposed to
fingerprints and iris scans, Clear CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker said. In addition,
it's the first use of biometrics by a major car rental company, according to
Hertz.
Hertz Gold Plus Rewards members who are in Clear—Allen wasn't
sure how many of Hertz's corporate customers that represented but imagined "there
is a strong overlap"—need only link their Clear and Gold Plus accounts to
use the lane. Clear currently has about 3 million members, Seidman-Becker said.
By the end of 2019, Hertz expects to install Fast Lanes at
more than 40 additional locations, including its locations at the Los Angeles
International Airport, New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and San
Francisco International Airport.
While Clear is best known for its quick airport lanes, it
has been expanding to other areas, including some outside the travel arena. For
example, it's working with sports stadiums for fast admission lanes and lines
for faster purchase of alcoholic beverages, because verifying ID also verifies
that a person is of legal drinking age. "Every place you see a choke point
is a place to use technology to improve it and make it safer and easier,"
Seidman-Becker said. "And in travel, there are a lot of choke points."