Article Quick Summary
A Consolidated Rental Car Facility, commonly called a CONRAC, brings airport rental car companies, vehicle storage, customer pick-up and return areas, and supporting fleet operations together in one coordinated facility.
The parking structure is a major part of a CONRAC, but it must do more than store vehicles. It needs to support continuous fleet movement, customers who are unfamiliar with the facility, rental car employees, vehicle processing, airport traffic, and long-term operations.
A successful CONRAC parking structure should be planned as transportation infrastructure. Vehicle circulation, pedestrian visibility, structural durability, drainage, construction phasing, future electrification, and the method used to build the structure should all be considered early.
A CONRAC is not simply a parking garage. It is airport transportation and fleet-processing infrastructure.
What Is a Consolidated Rental Car Facility?
A Consolidated Rental Car Facility centralizes multiple airport rental car companies in one location. Instead of each rental company operating from separate properties around the airport, the participating companies share a coordinated facility and certain common infrastructure.
The exact configuration varies from one airport to another, but a CONRAC commonly includes:
- Ready and return parking spaces
- Idle rental vehicle storage
- Customer service areas
- Rental car offices and employee facilities
- Quick Turnaround Areas
- Vehicle washing, cleaning and fueling systems
- Electric vehicle charging
- Customer and employee parking
- Roadways, ramps and vehicle staging areas
- Connections to terminals or airport transportation systems
The LAX Rental Car Center, for example, contains more than 18,000 spaces divided among ready and return vehicles, idle fleet storage, and rental car employee parking. The facility also includes a Quick Turnaround building and a connection to the airport’s passenger transportation system.
This scale demonstrates why CONRACs should be viewed as a distinct airport facility type rather than a minor variation of a conventional airport parking garage.
Ready and Return Parking
The ready and return area is generally the most customer-facing part of a CONRAC parking structure.
Ready spaces hold vehicles that have been prepared for the next rental customer. Return spaces receive vehicles at the end of each rental. Depending on the facility, the same general area may accommodate both functions, or the traffic streams may be separated.
The design should allow customers to find the correct rental company, vehicle class, return lane, elevator, customer service area, and terminal connection without unnecessary confusion.
Idle Fleet Storage
Rental car companies need additional spaces for vehicles that are not immediately ready for customer pick-up. These areas may hold reserve inventory, recently returned vehicles, vehicles waiting for service, or vehicles being repositioned within the fleet.
Idle storage may not require the same customer-facing finishes as ready and return parking, but it still requires efficient circulation, clear organization, security, lighting, drainage, and safe employee access.
Quick Turnaround Areas
The Quick Turnaround Area, often shortened to QTA, is where returned rental vehicles are prepared for the next customer.
Activities may include:
- Vehicle washing
- Interior cleaning and vacuuming
- Fueling
- Electric vehicle charging
- Vehicle inspections
- Fluid checks
- Light maintenance
- Staging vehicles for return to the ready area
The Quick Turnaround Facility at Portland International Airport, for example, was developed to help rental car companies quickly provide cleaned and fueled vehicles for airport customers.
A QTA is not ordinary parking space. It can introduce specialized requirements for ventilation, fire protection, drainage, wastewater treatment, oil-water separation, fueling, electrical capacity, vehicle washing, equipment, and environmental controls.
For that reason, the QTA may be attached to the parking structure, connected by ramps, incorporated into part of the structure, or constructed as a separate supporting building.
Why Airports Consolidate Rental Car Operations
There are several reasons an airport may decide to consolidate rental car operations.
A Simpler Customer Journey
Customers arriving at an airport are often unfamiliar with the property, local roads, rental car process, and available transportation connections.
A coordinated CONRAC gives customers a single destination for rental car services. Multiple rental companies can be accessed from the same general facility rather than through separate shuttle routes and scattered off-airport locations.
This can create a more predictable journey between the terminal, customer service areas, vehicle pick-up spaces, return lanes, and airport road network.
Reduced Terminal Roadway Congestion
Separate rental car facilities may require multiple company-operated shuttle buses to continuously circulate between terminals and remote rental locations.
A consolidated facility can allow those trips to be combined, reduced, or replaced with a shared shuttle, pedestrian connection, transit system, or automated people mover.
Los Angeles World Airports estimates that the LAX Rental Car Center and its passenger transportation connection can eliminate thousands of daily rental car shuttle trips from the terminal area.
Reducing shuttle traffic can help relieve congestion around terminal curbs and airport access roadways while making the rental car process easier for passengers to understand.
More Efficient Use of Airport Property
Airport land is valuable and often constrained by terminals, roadways, utilities, airfield operations, security requirements, commercial uses, and future expansion plans.
Storing thousands of rental vehicles on surface lots can consume a substantial amount of land. A multi-level parking structure increases capacity vertically, allowing rental fleets to remain close to airport transportation connections without requiring the same surface area.
Consolidation can also reduce duplicated infrastructure. Rental car companies may be able to share roadways, wayfinding, customer circulation, security, utility systems, employee areas, and certain vehicle-processing functions.
Better Coordination Between Rental Car Companies
A CONRAC places several rental car operators within a shared operating environment.
This can create opportunities for common-use infrastructure while still allowing each company to manage its own fleet, customers, brand, and operational areas.
However, it also introduces a significant coordination challenge. Each operator may have different fleet sizes, vehicle classes, peak periods, operational processes, branding requirements, and future growth expectations.
The parking structure should be flexible enough to support changing allocations without requiring major structural changes each time the rental car market changes.
Parking Structures Are Infrastructure
A parking structure for a CONRAC should not be approached as a simplified building whose only purpose is to provide a certain number of stalls.
It is part of the airport’s ground transportation system. It affects:
- Passenger movement
- Airport roadway traffic
- Rental car availability
- Fleet-processing capacity
- Customer satisfaction
- Rental car company operations
- Airport revenue
- Terminal congestion
- Long-term maintenance requirements
The Whole Building Design Guide describes parking as part of an overall transportation system. That description is especially appropriate for a CONRAC, where the parking structure connects customers, rental vehicles, fleet employees, vehicle-processing operations, airport roadways, and terminal transportation.
CONRAC parking structures may operate for long hours with continuous vehicle movement. Vehicles bring water, dirt, road salt, chlorides, oils, fuel residue, and other contaminants into the structure. In northern climates, rental fleets may repeatedly carry snow and de-icing chemicals onto the driving surface.
The structure must also accommodate cleaning, snow removal, drainage, inspections, repairs, lighting, security systems, and changing operational technology.
When a section of a CONRAC is closed for maintenance, the impact is not limited to parking inconvenience. The closure may reduce available fleet capacity, interrupt vehicle movement, create customer delays, and affect rental car operations.
This is why lifecycle performance matters. Durability, drainage, inspectability, maintenance access, structural materials, joint design, and repair planning should be considered before the parking structure is procured.
Start With Rental Car Operations, Not Just Stall Count
The first planning question for many parking projects is: How many spaces are required?
That number is important, but it is not enough to properly plan a CONRAC.
The project team also needs to understand how vehicles move through the complete rental cycle:
- A vehicle is returned by a customer.
- The vehicle is inspected and directed toward processing.
- The vehicle moves into a QTA or service area.
- The vehicle is cleaned, fueled, charged, or maintained.
- The vehicle is staged for its next rental.
- The vehicle is moved into a ready space.
- A new customer finds and leaves with the vehicle.
Each step creates traffic, queuing, capacity, staffing, and space requirements.
A structure can have the correct total number of stalls and still perform poorly if vehicles cannot move efficiently between the return area, QTA, idle storage, and ready spaces.
Peak Return and Pick-Up Volumes
Rental car activity may rise sharply around flight arrival periods, holidays, major events, weather disruptions, and seasonal travel peaks.
The design should consider peak-hour demand rather than relying only on average daily vehicle volumes.
Return lanes need enough capacity to prevent rental vehicles from backing up onto airport roads. Internal ramps and drive aisles need to accommodate fleet movements without creating conflicts with customers leaving the facility.
Similarly, vehicle pick-up areas must provide enough capacity for customers who may spend additional time loading luggage, installing child seats, inspecting vehicles, or becoming familiar with an unfamiliar car.
Separate Customer and Operational Traffic Where Practical
Customers and rental car employees use the facility differently.
Customers may drive cautiously, stop unexpectedly, search for signs, load luggage, walk between vehicles, or be unfamiliar with the airport. Rental car employees may move vehicles frequently and follow established internal routes between fleet areas.
Where practical, a CONRAC should separate:
- Customer pick-up traffic
- Customer return traffic
- Employee fleet movements
- QTA circulation
- Delivery and service vehicles
- Pedestrian routes
Complete separation is not always possible, but conflict points should be identified and minimized during early planning.
Open Spans and Clear Sightlines
Open spans are particularly valuable in a CONRAC parking structure.
Fewer interior columns and obstructions can make parking bays easier to understand and allow vehicles to move through the structure with fewer tight turning points. This is useful when customers are driving unfamiliar vehicles through an unfamiliar facility.
Open sightlines also help drivers and pedestrians see each other.
Rental car customers frequently walk through parking areas while carrying luggage, looking for vehicles, travelling with children, or moving between customer service areas and elevators. At the same time, employees may be moving rental vehicles between storage, ready-return, and QTA areas.
When drivers and pedestrians can see across the parking bay, they have more time to recognize each other and respond. Eye contact and mutual visibility can reduce uncertainty at pedestrian crossings, drive aisles, elevators, stairs, and vehicle pick-up zones.
Open spans can also support:
- Better camera coverage
- Fewer blind spots
- Improved natural lighting
- Clearer wayfinding
- Easier supervision by rental car staff
- A less enclosed customer environment
- More adaptable parking layouts
These principles are closely connected to Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design for parking structures. Visibility, lighting, intuitive circulation, and natural surveillance can improve both actual safety and the customer’s perception of the facility.
Clear Heights and Rental Fleet Requirements
Rental fleets include more than standard passenger cars.
A CONRAC may need to accommodate:
- SUVs
- Pickup trucks
- Passenger vans
- Commercial vans
- Luxury vehicles
- Accessible rental vehicles
- Vehicles with roof racks
- Electric vehicles
- Specialty and seasonal fleet vehicles
Required clear heights should be confirmed before floor-to-floor heights, beams, signs, sprinklers, lighting, conduits, and other overhead systems are finalized.
The structure should not be designed around the smallest vehicle in the current fleet if the rental car companies expect demand for larger vehicles to increase.
At the same time, adding unnecessary structural height to every level can increase façade area, ramp lengths, material quantities, and construction cost. The appropriate clearance should be based on the actual fleet, future operational needs, building systems, and applicable codes.
Wayfinding in a Multi-Operator Facility
Wayfinding is critical in every airport facility, but CONRACs add another layer of complexity.
A customer may need to find:
- The rental car facility from the terminal
- The correct company or customer service area
- The assigned parking level
- The correct vehicle class or stall
- The exit route from the structure
- The correct airport roadway
- The return entrance at the end of the rental
- A fueling or charging location before returning the vehicle
Drivers may be tired, rushed, distracted, unfamiliar with the vehicle, or navigating in a different language.
Good CONRAC wayfinding should use a consistent hierarchy of colours, symbols, company identifiers, level designations, lane markings, lighting, and overhead signs.
The structural layout should support the wayfinding system. Signs should be visible from appropriate decision points and should not be repeatedly obstructed by deep beams, closely spaced columns, equipment, or abrupt turns.
Durability, Water and Drainage
Water is one of the most important durability considerations in a parking structure.
Rental vehicles may enter a CONRAC immediately after travelling on wet, snowy, or salt-covered roads. The structure may also experience wind-driven rain, vehicle washing, snow storage, cleaning activities, and water moving between connected operational areas.
The design should consider:
- Deck slopes
- Drain locations
- Joint layouts
- Waterproofing strategy
- Snow and ice accumulation
- Chloride exposure
- Corrosion protection
- Drain maintenance
- Protection of occupied or operational areas below
- Separation of stormwater from QTA wastewater
QTA water should not automatically be treated the same way as ordinary rainwater from an open parking deck. Wash water, fuel residue, oils, cleaning products, and other contaminants may require specialized collection and treatment systems.
Parking deck drainage and QTA process drainage should be coordinated as related but distinct systems.
Electric Rental Fleets and Charging Infrastructure
Rental car companies are beginning to introduce more electric vehicles into their fleets. This can create a concentrated charging demand that is different from EV charging in a conventional public parking garage.
A public charger may serve one parked vehicle for several hours. A rental fleet may need to charge, clean, inspect, and return a vehicle to service within a much shorter operating window.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s guidance for electric fleets recommends planning for both near-term charging needs and future fleet expansion. This may include additional circuits, electrical capacity, and conduit for chargers that will be installed later.
For a CONRAC, early EV planning should consider:
- The number of electric rental vehicles expected initially
- Future fleet electrification targets
- Charging speed requirements
- Vehicle dwell times
- Load management
- Electrical rooms and transformer capacity
- Utility service requirements
- Charger protection from vehicle impacts
- Accessible charging locations
- Fire and life-safety requirements
- Charging equipment maintenance
- Connections between the QTA and ready fleet areas
Portland International Airport has installed fast-charging infrastructure within its rental car QTA to help rental car companies return electric vehicles to service more quickly.
Even when a CONRAC does not initially require extensive charging, providing pathways, space, and electrical capacity during construction may be less disruptive than retrofitting the facility later.
Future Expansion and Operational Flexibility
Airport passenger volumes, rental car demand, fleet composition, and rental company market shares can all change during the life of the structure.
A CONRAC should be evaluated for future:
- Horizontal expansion
- Vertical expansion
- Additional rental car companies
- Changing space allocations
- Larger rental fleets
- Additional QTA capacity
- More electric vehicle charging
- New customer service models
- Changes to airport transit connections
Structural expansion cannot simply be assumed. Foundations, columns, lateral systems, ramps, utilities, fire protection, elevators, stairs, and site circulation must be designed for the intended expansion strategy.
If future expansion is important, it should be defined during the initial planning and procurement process.
Building a CONRAC at an Active Airport
Airport construction rarely occurs on an empty, unrestricted site.
Existing rental car companies may need to remain operational throughout construction. Airport roads, parking, utilities, passenger transportation, employee access, and security systems may also need to remain active.
Construction planning may need to account for:
- Temporary rental car facilities
- Phased relocation of rental companies
- Temporary ready and return areas
- Maintaining fleet capacity
- Limited site access and material staging
- Airport security and worker badging
- Restricted delivery routes
- Construction traffic near public roadways
- Utility relocations
- Night or off-peak work
- Noise and lighting restrictions
- Maintaining customer wayfinding during each phase
Prefabrication can be valuable on constrained airport sites because more structural work can be completed away from the active airport. Components can then be delivered and assembled according to a coordinated erection sequence.
This does not eliminate the need for careful site planning, but it can reduce forming, material storage, site labour, and the duration of certain construction activities.
Parking Structure Construction Methods for Consolidated Rental Car Facilities
Owners planning a CONRAC will generally encounter three main above-grade parking structure construction methods:
- Cast-in-place concrete
- UHPC Panel-and-Beam
- Precast Double-Tee
Each can be appropriate. The best method depends on the airport site, structural layout, schedule, fleet operations, durability requirements, local supply chain, foundation conditions, and construction phasing.
Cast-in-Place Concrete
Cast-in-place concrete is formed, reinforced, poured, and cured on site. It is familiar and adaptable, particularly for irregular geometry, integrated ramps, below-grade construction, and highly customized layouts.
However, it can require substantial on-site forming, labour, material storage, and curing time. These activities should be considered carefully where rental car and airport operations must continue beside the construction area.
UHPC Panel-and-Beam
UHPC Panel-and-Beam uses prefabricated concrete deck panels supported by a structural beam-and-column frame.
This method can support open spans, clear sightlines, natural lighting, off-site fabrication, and efficient structural erection. Open parking bays are particularly useful in CONRACs because pedestrians, customers, fleet employees, and drivers need to see each other while moving through the facility.
Precast Double-Tee
Precast Double-Tee construction uses large precast concrete members that form the parking deck and support system. It is a common and established method for large parking structures and can provide rapid structural erection once foundations and supporting elements are ready.
Owners should consider member depth, transportation, crane access, structural weight, joints, field-applied systems, sightlines, and long-term maintenance requirements when comparing it with other methods.
The construction method should not be selected based only on initial price per parking space. Airport disruption, foundation requirements, construction duration, maintenance, durability, operational closures, and lifecycle costs should also be evaluated.
Procurement and Stakeholder Coordination
A CONRAC involves more stakeholders than a conventional parking structure.
Participants may include:
- The airport authority
- Rental car companies
- Rental car concession representatives
- Airport planners
- Traffic and transportation consultants
- Parking consultants
- Architects and engineers
- QTA equipment and systems specialists
- Utility providers
- Environmental consultants
- Security and technology teams
- Contractors and structural system providers
These parties should be involved early enough to influence the design.
Waiting until the structure is substantially designed before speaking with rental car operators, QTA specialists, structural system providers, or builders can limit opportunities to improve circulation, reduce cost, accelerate construction, and simplify operations.
Define Results Before Prescribing the Solution
A performance-focused procurement can define the outcomes the airport needs, including:
- Required ready and return capacity
- Idle fleet storage
- Peak vehicle throughput
- Clear heights
- Durability and service-life expectations
- Construction schedule
- Operational continuity
- Maintenance access
- Future expansion
- EV charging capacity
- Customer experience
The procurement should be cautious about prescribing a structural method before alternative approaches have been properly evaluated.
Progressive Design-Build or another collaborative project delivery method can allow the airport, rental car companies, designers, and builder to develop the facility together before the final construction scope and price are established.
Customer Facility Charges
Some U.S. airports use Customer Facility Charges collected through airport rental car transactions to support the capital or operating costs of rental car facilities.
The legal authority, permitted uses, collection method, and contractual arrangements vary by jurisdiction. The National Academies’ Airport Customer Facility Charges: Analysis of Laws, Regulations, and Case Law provides an overview of how these charges may be implemented and used.
Funding should be evaluated early because it can influence project scope, rental car agreements, delivery method, phasing, approvals, and long-term facility operations.
Questions to Answer Before Designing a CONRAC Parking Structure
Before selecting a layout or structural system, the project team should answer several operational questions:
- How many ready and return spaces are required?
- How much idle fleet storage is required?
- Which rental car companies will use the facility?
- How will parking spaces be allocated among operators?
- What are the peak hourly pick-up and return volumes?
- How quickly must vehicles move through the QTA?
- Which vehicle types must the structure accommodate?
- What clear heights are required?
- Which areas will be open to customers?
- Which routes will be used by rental car employees?
- How will customers travel between the terminal and CONRAC?
- How will ready-return traffic be separated from fleet-processing traffic?
- What vehicle washing and fueling systems are required?
- How will stormwater and QTA wastewater be managed?
- How much EV charging is required initially?
- What electrical capacity is required for future charging?
- Must existing rental car operations continue during construction?
- What future expansion should the structure support?
- What maintenance interruptions can the airport and operators tolerate?
- Which construction methods will be considered?
The answers should form the basis of the design and procurement requirements.
Planning Better Parking Structures for CONRACs
Consolidated Rental Car Facilities are more than collections of rental car counters and parking spaces.
They are active airport transportation facilities that combine customer service, structured vehicle storage, fleet movement, vehicle processing, airport access, and long-term infrastructure.
The parking structure must support continuous activity while remaining intuitive for customers who may use it only once. It must help rental car employees move vehicles efficiently, provide clear visibility between pedestrians and drivers, withstand demanding environmental exposure, and adapt as fleets and airport needs change.
Early decisions about circulation, clear heights, structural spans, drainage, expansion, EV infrastructure, construction phasing, and the structural construction method can significantly affect the facility’s cost and long-term performance.
Kiwi Newton designs, manufactures, and constructs above-grade parking structures using the Kiwi CarPark System, a UHPC Panel-and-Beam construction method. Kiwi’s airport parking experience includes the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Relocatable Parking Deck and the Sioux Lookout Municipal Airport Parking Structure.
Early involvement allows the parking layout, structural grid, airport operations, construction schedule, prefabrication strategy, and lifecycle objectives to be considered together.
Planning a parking structure for an airport or Consolidated Rental Car Facility? Contact Kiwi Newton to discuss the project, review early concepts, and evaluate the available parking structure construction methods.
