Rental Car Demand Spikes in Japan Quake Area
Rental car demand has spiked in northeastern Japan after the
March earthquake and tsunami, reports Mainichi Japan. Car rental
industry groups in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures estimate demand
has been running at least 50 percent and 30 percent higher, respectively,
from a year earlier as both local residents and companies are
in need of transportation, industry officials said.
In Miyagi Prefecture about 900 vehicles or about 10 percent of
the fleets owned by 124 member firms, were damaged or destroyed
by the tsunami. Some 70 of the firms reported damage from the
quake and tsunami and 13 said they lost the operations of their
head offices, the local association said.
In Fukushima, 10 companies have been forced to suspend services
at their outlets located within a 20-kilometer radius of the crippled
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Rental firms are struggling to replace fleet by buying new cars
or borrowing vehicles from outside their prefectures, the officials
said. "Our operating rate will likely remain high for some
time to come," said Masao Yoshida, a senior official of the
Iwate Prefecture rent-a-car association in the Mainichi Japan
report.
Some 230,000 rental vehicles were lost in the area due to the
crisis, according to the report.
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