Fleet and revenue management in car rental companies: A literature review and an integrated conceptual framework

Abstract

This paper aims to present, define and structure the car rental fleet management problem, which includes operational fleet management issues and problems traditionally studied under the revenue management framework. The car rental business has challenging and distinctive characteristics, which are mainly related with fleet and decision-making flexibility, and that render this problem relevant for academic research and practical applications. Three main contributions are presented: an in-depth literature review and discussion on car rental fleet and revenue management issues, a novel integrating conceptual framework for this problem, and the identification of research directions for the future development of the field.