City-Drop chooses Tchek to optimize the return of its commercial vehicles

Marseille, February 17, 2022 - City-Drop, a specialist in one-way rental of connected commercial vehicles, has chosen Tchek, the European market leader in AI-based imaging solutions for the automotive industry, as the automated inspection solution for its commercial vehicles.
Together, City-Drop and Tchek will offer an optimized user experience when renting commercial vehicles by facilitating the return process thanks to their connected utilities and the ALTO AI embedded in Tchek Inspect solutions. It is also an alliance between two French companies that put technology at the heart of their development and at the service of users in order to offer ever simpler, faster and more efficient solutions.

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A sustained demand for commercial vehicles

For a little over a year now, there has been a definite disengagement from the cities and a massive migration to the provinces. In 2021, more than a third of the removals will be additional, thus increasing the need for commercial vehicles. This is a growing market, but one that is still held back by the very high cost of renting this type of vehicle and by a lack of confidence in the hidden costs that may arise when the vehicle is returned. Moreover, when moving to a new city, often several tens or even hundreds of kilometers away, it is difficult to envisage returning to the city of origin to return the vehicle, an additional constraint for the user today.

City-Drop, the solution adapted to users' expectations

City-Drop was created in 2014 to meet the growing demand for commercial vehicle rental and to remove the constraints mentioned above. A commercial vehicle rental solution thus meeting the expectations of the market, rental in total autonomy, one way and at lower cost. Today, the figures reflect the success met by City-Drop with more than 1,500 rentals per month for a fleet of 300 connected utility vehicles and already 50,000 customers.
In addition, following a €3 million fundraising round last October, City-Drop is now aiming for a European expansion in the new year as well as a reinforcement of its fleet, including 25% electric vehicles.

"City-Drop is dusting off and revolutionizing the rental market by offering a 100% digitalized and autonomous customer experience in Europe.
The integration of Tchek's Artificial Intelligence ALTO AI in our application will allow us to enrich our offer and to continue our development at the European level in the best conditions but also to bring the maximum serenity to our users.
We are very happy and proud of this collaboration with a French company that shares the same values as ours" says Christophe Gerbeaud, CEO and co-founder of City-Drop.

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A major asset with Tchek Inspect as a trusted third party

Today, the control of the vehicle's condition at the time of return is still often carried out manually on photos transmitted by the customer and verified by a City-Drop operator, time-consuming and error-prone actions. City-Drop has therefore chosen to integrate the Tchek Inspect solution to inspect any damage to the vehicle at the time of its return, thanks to an inspection solution based on artificial intelligence. This solution allows City-Drop to respond to several issues, first of all to respond to the ever increasing volume of requests for commercial vehicles by drastically reducing the time spent on the inspection of the vehicle during its return, which is performed by the user on his smartphone and then analyzed by the artificial intelligence ALTO AI. But it also allows the user to be more responsible, as the inspection will be systematically carried out when the vehicle is returned to the next user, who will in turn rent a vehicle in perfect condition.
City-Drop also chose Tchek Inspect for our "quality" algorithm that helps in taking pictures and for the accuracy of damage detection. This automatic claim detection improves transparency and trust between customers and the rental company.

"The 100% digital rental environment is on the move. We are proud to move forward in this sector with City-Drop, and convinced that Artificial Intelligence will become a considerable asset both on automatic inspection and customer experience," says Sofiane Benabdallah, CTO and co-founder at Tchek.