New Study Reveals America’s Most Challenging Cities to Navigate

Seven Out of Ten Business Travelers Acknowledge
a Real “Cost” of Getting Lost

Getting to know a city is a big job, but getting through a city shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, some of America’s metropolitan areas present a navigational challenge for even the most intelligent, savvy drivers.

In fact, according to a recent study conducted by
“Best Places to Live” expert, Bert Sperling, Boston is America’s “most challenging city to navigate”, followed closely by Washington D.C. (2), San Francisco (3), Baltimore (4) and New York City (5)*.

Following the national launch of Avis Assist, a mobile phone-based navigation system powered by Motorola’s VIAMOTO software, Avis Rent A Car and Motorola teamed up with the city study specialists at Sperling’s Best Places to analyze how difficult America’s largest 75 cities are to navigate.

Many popular business travel destinations ranked high on the roster, including Los Angeles (7), Seattle (8), Chicago (12) and Orlando (15), while other business travel hot spots such as Salt Lake City (61), San Antonio (64) and Las Vegas (65) were dubbed “driver-friendly.”

Sperling evaluated the nation’s top metro areas according to the following criteria:

• street layouts (grids, diagonals, windiness, one-way streets);
• overall design and layout (how spread out the market is);
• travel time index;
• percent of congested freeway and street lane miles;
• bodies of water (rivers, lakes, oceans, bridges);
• complexity of directions needed to travel from major airports to city center;
• annual delay per person (person hours);
• days of snow exceeding one-and-one-half inches; and
• days of rain exceeding half an inch

To see the full ranking of the 75 markets, visit www.avis.com.

The “Cost” of Getting Lost
Demonstrating growth for the first time since 1999, U.S. residents are projected to take more than 122 million business trips in 2004, an improvement of 4.2 percent from 2003**.

As business travel continues to rise, the need to maximize productivity on the road is becoming increasingly important. According to a consumer survey of 1,000 Americans commissioned by Avis Rent A Car and Motorola***, 65 percent agree that there are certain cities they consistently find difficult to navigate, and 57 percent agree that getting lost is one of the worst things that can happen on a business trip.

Further, nearly 70 percent of travelers agree getting lost can negatively impact the outcome of their business meeting, and 93 percent said that arriving late to a business meeting as a result of getting lost makes a poor impression.

So what are the options?
Paper maps get cumbersome and can be difficult to use when driving alone, and online mapping services often are incorrect.

But there is a solution. To avoid getting lost, 68 percent of travelers would prefer using a Global Positioning System navigational tool (GPS) over a paper map, and 72 percent prefer to use a GPS navigational tool with any car they rent. Four in five travelers find tremendous advantages in having a GPS tool they can use while driving, as well as take with them when they leave the car. Furthermore, 86 percent of Americans traveling to unfamiliar destinations find specific turn-by-turn directions very helpful.

“Many of the cities identified in the study as being among the most challenging to navigate are, in fact, our top car rental markets,” said Scott Deaver, executive vice president of marketing for Cendant Car Rental Group, the parent company of Avis. “That’s why we offer Avis Assist, a tool to help business travelers easily navigate their way through unfamiliar markets and make the most of their time on the road.”

Avis Assist gives travelers the ability to bypass unwieldy maps and confusing gas station directions by gaining instant real-time, spoken directions through a convenient mobile handset. Now available in 60 cities nationwide, Avis Assist helps travelers reach their destinations, and offers users the ability to receive information on areas of interest such as local restaurants, the closest ATM, copy centers and service stations.

In August, Motorola and Avis Assist will roll out new features to help make navigating and driving even easier including:

• A detour function, giving drivers the ability to avoid the next one, five or ten miles of a congested roadway - along with alternate routes around delays.

• Even more specific spoken, turn-by-turn directions combining street names and street numbers. For example, drivers will hear, "...in a quarter mile turn right onto Route 45 - Manheim Road.”

• Automatic re-routing. Instead of pressing a button to calculate a new route, Avis Assist will automatically announce new directions when a driver makes a wrong turn.

Avis Assist units can be rented in conjunction with any Avis vehicle at available locations for $9.95 per day. Equipment can be reserved in advance at 888-777-AVIS.

Bert Sperling’s Top 10 Most Difficult Cities to Navigate
1. Boston, MA
2. Washington, DC
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Baltimore, MD
5. New York, NY-Northeastern NJ
6. Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood-Pompano Beach, FL
7. Los Angeles, CA
8. Seattle-Everett, WA
9. Providence, Pawtucket RI-MA
10. Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach, VA

Additional Consumer Survey Findings
• When it comes to asking for directions, the age-old gender divide still holds true. 64 percent of women report that they are the ones who have to stop and ask for directions compared to 41 percent of men.

• 68 percent of Americans agree that getting lost causes tension with other passengers in the car.

• Women (71%) are more likely then men (56%) to feel stressed when they don’t know where they are.

* Sperling’s BestPlaces study. For nearly 20 years, Bert Sperling has been helping people find their own “Best Place.” As the foremost creator of these studies, his work appears in national media nearly every month, and he recently appeared on the Today Show to introduce his new book, “Cities Ranked and Rated.” His firm, "Sperling's BestPlaces" puts facts about cities and living in the hands of the public, so they can make better decisions about best places to live, work, retire, play, or relocate. More information is available at www.bestplaces.net.

** Travel Industry Association of America (TIA).

*** Avis Assist study conducted by StrategyOne from July 19 through July 23, 2004.
The online survey was completed nationwide among 1,000 respondents regarding getting lost while traveling. Margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence.

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