Pizza Hut, Visa Testing In-Car Ordering

(RTTNews) - Your prayers are answered. You can soon look to order your favorite pizza while driving back after a strenuous day at office with the help of your car's center dash.

Pizza Hut, in collaboration with payment giant Visa, Inc. (V) and technology consulting company Accenture plc (ACN), is developing a system whereby you can order and pay from the comforts of your car. The system is being demonstrated by Visa at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

"By 2020 it is estimated that more than 250 million vehicles worldwide will include some form of embedded connectivity. As the number of connected cars on the road increases, so does our ability to bring secure online commerce to consumers everywhere," said Bill Gajda, senior vice president of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at Visa.

The companies said they are working together to develop a proof-of-concept connected car to test mobile and online purchases on the go. They expect to start testing the system in Northern California this spring over a period of three months.

The connected car is expected to feature Visa Checkout, Visa's online payment service, cellular connectivity, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), as well as Beacon technology deployed at Pizza Hut. Accenture is playing the pivotal role of developing the applications and integrating several technologies.

The beacon technology will help in alerting the Pizza Hut staff when the customer's car arrives to pickup the piping hot order. You can also select the home delivery option.

"We're committed to offering speed and convenience to our customers when ordering online and this new connected car technology is the latest way for us to do that," said Baron Concors, Chief Digital Officer, Pizza Hut.

Meanwhile, Visa is hoping to expand the service into other areas so that customers can shop while driving, or pay for gas and parking tickets while still in their car.