ITIL Car Rental: The Official Case Study
About ITIL Car Rental
ITIL Car Rental (ICR) is the official running case study used throughout the ITIL v5 Foundation book (PeopleCert, 2025). It demonstrates how ITIL v5 concepts apply in a real-world digital organization.
Business Context
ICR launched ten years ago in Seattle providing affordable rental cars globally. The organization relies heavily on digital technology:
- Customer-facing mobile applications developed in-house
- Third-party GPS, IoT, and logistics platforms for fleet management
- Cloud-based ITSM, CRM, and ERP systems for internal operations
Strategic Challenge
New competitors emerged: car-sharing services, rideshare apps, and driverless cars. Customers expect seamless digital experiences with quick bookings, app-based support, and flexible rental options. The board appointed a new CIO, Max, to bring "a more integrated approach to digital product and service management."
Meet the ICR Team
| Name | Role | Focus Area | ITIL v5 Connection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max | Chief Information Officer | Digital transformation, integrated DPSM | Governance, strategy, AI governance |
| Anna | Product Manager | Commercial success, B2C development, sustainability | Product lifecycle, experience management |
| Maria | Business Analyst | IT-business collaboration, discovery and planning | Value stream mapping, process improvement |
| Omar | IT Delivery Manager | Service delivery, efficiency, customer satisfaction | Incident, problem, change, service desk |
| Sam | Head of Product Development | Cross-functional product teams, innovation | Build, software development, DevOps |
| Alex | Enterprise Architect | Architecture alignment, sustainability, future-proofing | Architecture management, design |
Team Dynamics
Max values ITIL certification and believes Design Thinking, DevOps, and agile methods "should not exist in isolation but be part of a comprehensive, integrated framework for digital product and service management."
ICR Through the Four Dimensions
Organizations and People
The ICR team represents different perspectives requiring alignment:
- Max (CIO) focuses on strategic integration and governance
- Anna (Product) emphasizes customer experience and commercial outcomes
- Omar (Delivery) prioritizes operational efficiency and service quality
- Sam (Development) drives innovation and engineering excellence
Information and Technology
Max describes the information landscape: "Information and technology dimension represents information created and managed by teams. It also includes technologies that support and enable our services."
Sam highlights data protection concerns: "We collect personal data: ID, driving license, and so on. That is why we already have a solid data management framework."
Max emphasizes AI governance: "We actively use AI and are highly concerned with AI governance: specifically, how we control its use. AI plays a critical role in optimising pricing models, predicting fleet demand, and personalizing the customer experience."
Value Streams and Processes
Maria explains their experience: "We have well-defined processes in every part of the company, which are followed by most teams at most times. However, in the last few months, we have had coordination issues between the booking service and fleet management teams."
Anna reports outcomes: "We identified bottlenecks, some related to digital products, some to work processes, and managed to significantly improve the workflow. More importantly, value stream mapping helped us understand how our teams interact and where value gets stuck."
Partners and Suppliers
ICR depends on multiple external partners:
- GPS and IoT platform providers
- Cloud infrastructure vendors
- Payment processing services
- Third-party logistics and fleet management systems
ICR functions as both service consumer and service provider within multiple supply networks.
ICR Through the Product and Service Lifecycle
Discover
ICR invested in driverless cars, partnering with a major autonomous technology company. This required:
- Market research and competitive analysis
- Technology readiness and risk assessment
- Stakeholder alignment across board, product, and engineering teams
- Business case development for multi-year investment
ITIL Connection: Discover identifies opportunities and assesses alignment with organizational strategy using PESTLE analysis and complexity context assessment.
Design
The design phase focused on:
- Service requirements for autonomous vehicle rental
- User experience design for booking and managing driverless cars
- Architectural decisions integrating autonomous vehicle APIs
- Security and safety considerations for AI-controlled vehicles
ITIL Connection: Design considers all four dimensions, ensuring utility (fit for purpose) and warranty (fit for use).
Build
Sam led development efforts including:
- Mobile app features for autonomous vehicle booking
- Integration APIs with the autonomous technology partner
- Monitoring dashboards for vehicle fleet health
- Automated testing suites for safety-critical features
Max notes: "Since we have implemented several new AI products at ITIL Car Rental, our objective is to assess whether these platforms meet performance, compliance, and governance standards."
ITIL Connection: Build develops and configures products and services, ensuring quality through service validation and testing.
Deliver
The delivery phase involved:
- Launching autonomous rental service in pilot markets
- Training customer support for new scenarios (vehicle stuck, route deviation)
- Establishing service level targets for autonomous vehicle availability
- Communicating with customers about the new service
ITIL Connection: Deliver ensures services reach consumers in agreed manner with appropriate service levels and support.
Support
Support for autonomous vehicle service required:
- 24/7 monitoring of vehicle health and safety systems
- Incident management for technology failures (sensor malfunction)
- Problem management for recurring issues (GPS accuracy in urban canyons)
- Knowledge management for new incident types unprecedented in traditional car rental
ITIL Connection: Support restores service and manages known errors. ICR developed entirely new incident categories and response procedures for autonomous vehicles.
Key Lessons from ICR
1. Integration Over Silos
ICR's success depends on integrating product management (Anna, Sam) with service management (Omar) under unified governance (Max). ITIL v5's DPSM concept directly addresses this need.
2. AI Governance is Not Optional
Max's AI governance concerns reflect organizational reality: "organizations using AI in customer-facing services must govern how AI makes decisions," especially in safety-critical contexts like autonomous vehicles.
3. Value Stream Mapping Reveals Hidden Problems
Maria and Anna's experience shows that mapping actual workflows reveals coordination problems between teams invisible in documentation.
4. Complexity Requires Adaptive Management
Launching driverless car rental is complex -- cause and effect only visible retrospectively. ICR cannot simply apply best practices from traditional car rental. They must experiment, sense, and respond.
5. The Four Dimensions Are Inseparable
The autonomous vehicle initiative touches every dimension:
- Organizations and People: New skills, roles, changed team dynamics
- Information and Technology: AI systems, data governance, new platforms
- Partners and Suppliers: Autonomous technology vendor relationship
- Value Streams and Processes: Entirely new operational workflows
Focusing on technology alone would have failed. ITIL v5's holistic approach addresses all dimensions.
ICR for Exam Preparation
| Concept | ICR Example |
|---|---|
| DPSM | Products (mobile app, fleet platform) AND services (car rental, support) |
| Four Dimensions | All four demonstrated through Max, Anna, Maria, Omar, Sam, Alex |
| Value Co-Creation | Customer uses app + ICR provides car + technology partner provides AI |
| Complexity Contexts | Autonomous vehicles = Complex; daily operations = Ordered |
| 6C AI Model | Pricing optimization, customer chatbot, demand prediction |
| Value Stream Mapping | Maria and Anna identify coordination bottlenecks |
| Governance | Max ensures AI governance and strategic alignment |
| Guiding Principles | Start where you are (existing fleet); progress iteratively (pilot markets) |