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Design a Car Rental Booking System
Design an online car rental system, similar to services like Hertz or Avis, that enables users to search for and book rental cars.
Core User Flows
- Search available cars based on:
- Pickup location
- Pickup date/time and return date/time
- Car class (e.g., economy, SUV) and optional filters (e.g., price, number of seats)
- Quote pricing, including base rates, fees, and taxes.
- Book a selected car.
- Cancel / modify an existing reservation.
Requirements
- Prevent double-booking of the same car for overlapping time ranges.
- Handle high read traffic for search operations and accommodate spikes during promotional periods.
- Provide a good user experience (UX) with quick search results and reliable booking confirmations.
Assumptions
- The car fleet is organized by location; each car is assigned to a single location.
- A reservation is defined as a time interval
[start, end)with timezone-aware timestamps.
Deliverables
- High-level APIs
- Data model
- High-level architecture (including services, storage, and caching strategies)
- Concurrency control approach (e.g., database locks, optimistic concurrency, distributed locks)
- Scaling and reliability considerations
AI interview prep
Core dilemma
Balancing high read throughput for search and dynamic pricing with strict write consistency for booking and preventing double-booking of a finite, time-bound resource (cars) under concurrent access.
Mid-level signals4
Senior signals5
Red flags5
3 tradeoffs and 3 stress tests locked
Interview prep
Unlock the interviewer X-Ray rubric, tradeoff matrix, stress tests, clarifying questions, and key concepts.
Design a Car Rental Booking System
Design an online car rental system, similar to services like Hertz or Avis, that enables users to search for and book rental cars.
Core User Flows
- Search available cars based on:
- Pickup location
- Pickup date/time and return date/time
- Car class (e.g., economy, SUV) and optional filters (e.g., price, number of seats)
- Quote pricing, including base rates, fees, and taxes.
- Book a selected car.
- Cancel / modify an existing reservation.
Requirements
- Prevent double-booking of the same car for overlapping time ranges.
- Handle high read traffic for search operations and accommodate spikes during promotional periods.
- Provide a good user experience (UX) with quick search results and reliable booking confirmations.
Assumptions
- The car fleet is organized by location; each car is assigned to a single location.
- A reservation is defined as a time interval
[start, end)with timezone-aware timestamps.
Deliverables
- High-level APIs
- Data model
- High-level architecture (including services, storage, and caching strategies)
- Concurrency control approach (e.g., database locks, optimistic concurrency, distributed locks)
- Scaling and reliability considerations