UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK FACULTY OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
TMP 4913 FINAL YEAR PROJECT 1 TITLE: Android Based Car Rental Application
Student Name: Muhammad Hakimi bin Muhammad Adil (31391) Supervisor’s Name: Dr. Halikul bin Lenando
1.1 Introduction Nowadays, Information Technology is a vital element of everyday life. Daily tasks are made easy by the use of real life application of Information Technology. The most common application used is cer tainly the Internet, where information is shared vastly around the world, at any given moment. F urthermore, the Internet provides the means for businesses to shift from traditional business model to a modern one, in parallel with the demands of the ever growing customer base. More and more companies are shifting to do their business online, where it is more convenient for them to expose their products or services for the public to purchase and subscribe. The advancement in mobile device technologies also contributed to the rapid growth of online businesses. Now, it is possible to build mobile application on various platforms such as Android and iOS, thus making it easier for their customers as it widens the boundary of the Internet not just on desktops, but on their handheld devices as well.
Therefore, this document is written to propose the development of a mobile application on the Android platform. Business is the main scope of the project and the chosen business is car rental services. Hence, the project will be focusing on customers who are looking to r ent cars for personal use.
1.2 Problem Statement
The car rental service in Unimas is a booming market, with a large market and no shortage of customers, which are the Unimas students themselves. However, it is inconvenient for the customers to manually search for the cars to be rented when they needed to use the service. Usually, they have to make reservations a day or longer before the actual rental. Another inconvenience that the customers have to face is the subject of availability of those cars, they have to ask whether there are cars that are available to rent. All these tedious work are time consuming and cost inefficient as well, as t hey customers have to exert additional costs for phone c alls and spend some time to find cars t hat are actually available for renting. Car rental business is one of the most demanded services in Unimas and knowing that as a fact, this project is the first to be made specifically for Unimas students. The creation of an Android ap plication to cater the demands for rental cars is certainly an efficient way to do business. It will save time, cost and energy. Implementation of search engine with the application will take the criteria that the c ustomers
desired into account, such as pickup location, car availability, and car model and select the best choices for the consideration of the c ustomers. 2.0 Project Objective 2.1 Overall Objective The overall objectives of this project are as follows: 1.
Study the use of search algorithms in mobile applications.
2.
Implement a search engine within the application to find the best choices of car rentals based on desired criteria such as location, car m odel, and availability.
3.
Create a user friendly application that can at tract the attention of Unimas students, for them to switch to a new way of doing business.
2.2 Project Scope The project is going to be develop by the means a full system and will be deployed for beta testing by the customers, in context, the Unimas students themselves. After the beta testing phase, a full system testing will be carried out and later be submitted for evaluation by the clients, in context the examiners. The system functions as a system which stores, process and handle customer information and the information of the most valuable assets which are the cars.
Type of Users and Their Level of Access
The system administrator: one who has total control and authority to manage the privileges of other users who are using the system. He is responsible to maintain the system, including updating the system from time to time. Apart from that, his role is also to make sure that each type of users can only access the system according to their pe rmitting level. However, with the high level of clearance to the system, the system administrator does not have the permission to manipulate and distribute the information stored in the database, as they are confidential.
Registered members: registers membered are the rental car service providers. The system administrator is to create a profile for car rental service providers using the information provided by registering, such as their contact numbers, location of service provided, rental car information, and the subject of service availability. Registered members are allowed to make amendments or updates to the
information given, and more importantly to the subject of se rvice availability if needed, by logging into the system by using their own chosen username and password. Each information update will be stored into the system’s database and treated as confidential information.
Unregistered members: unregistered user are users that will be using the system most. In scope, the users are Unimas students themselves. They are the ones that will be using the system to search for available car for rent. They are restricted to view, update or delete any information about the registered member’s information such as car reservation history.
3.0 Project Development Methodology 3.1 Waterfall Model of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
The Waterfall Model of the System Deve lopment Life Cycle (SDLC) includes five stages. Each stage of the waterfall model has their own processes t hat are needed to be completed before moving on to the next stages. The stages can be depicted in the diagram below.
Analysis
•Project Identification and Investigation •Project Planning •Requirements Analysis
Design
•Logical Design
Implementation
Verification
•Testing(Alpha, Beta) •Evaluation
Maintenance
3.1.1 Analysis
Project identification and investigation The first stage with the waterfall model is the analysis stage. Within the analysis stage, for this project, the developer must first identify the proje ct to be made by finding out real life problems, analyzing them and discussed whether is the problem is valid and can be solved by the implementation of a computerized solution. After a decision has been made on what project to be develop, lots of research must be done, specifically on search engines which is the core element in this project, before progressing deeper into the project to ensure that further processes run within the development cycle are smooth and successful.
Project Planning After project identification and investigation, the developer is required to lay out a schedule for the following stage of project development. The t imeline for each subsequent stages must be planned carefully, realistically and clearly identified so that the each stages can be completed accordingly. Planning stage is important to minimize the risk of proje ct impairments such as low quality deliverables, scope defects as well as increasing cost of development. Therefore, the developer will create a Gantt chart as a guide and goal for completing each stage according to the time frame allocated.
Requirements Analysis The developer is required to do requirement analysis on the system to be develop. The main goal o f requirement analysis is to find out what the potential clients in this context, Unimas students expects from system by the means out giving out questionnaires and oral interviews. Apart from that, the developer also has to identify hardware and software requirements needed to develop the project as the specification of the project running requirements.
3.1.2 Design
Logical Design The analysis stage is succeeded by the design stage. In the design stage, the developer is to come up with a design to the address the stated problem by the means of computerized solution. Before going straight to programming elements, the developer has to make up a concept of how the system will logically function, hence the logical design. Logical design is the illustration and explanation of the proposed system by the use of diagrams which includes Data F low Diagrams (DFD), Use Case Diagrams and Data Dictionary as well.
3.13. Implementation From logical design, the development progress towards the implementation stage. The developer is required to create the proposed system using Eclipse IDE, with the integration of Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin, since the system is to be run on Android platform. All aspects of the development must be done according to the logical design from the previous stage. The reason for t he rule is if changes are made to system at this stage, it will also affect the DFDs and Data Dictionary within the logical design. The creation of database for the proposed system and all the specifications gathered from the requirements analysis stage will be created in this stage and be implemented into one working system.
3.1.4 Verification
Testing In the verification stage, the working system will be put through two type of testing; Alpha and Beta testing. The alpha testing is done by the developer himself by creating test cases and then testing the system whether the system fulfill the r equirements according to the test case s. Meanwhile, for beta testing, the developer will host an open beta test among the student of Unimas for them to test the working system. The beta testing will provide the medium for the developer to gain feedbacks from the end user which will be helpful for project correction during the maintenance stage.
Evaluate The full working system is then submitted for evaluation from the client, in this context the examiner. The system should perform as specified and run as the clients expect. If they feel that there are corrections to be made, their input is gathered and corrections are to be made in the maintenance stage.
3.15 Maintenance The developer is required to make corrections if needed based on the feedbacks gathered during beta testing and evaluation by clients. After corrections are made, the propose system is deployed for public use. The developer will acts as the system administrator and maintain the system from time to time, which responsibilities may involve correction of coding, rapid training and managing the users gr oups for the propose system.
4.0 Project Plan The project plan has been illustrated in graphical which called as Gantt chart that involves the duration of tasks that showing what is the start and end time for activities in each stage of waterfall model. The purpose of using Gantt chart for the developer is to help and ensure t hat every process of the projec t is running smoothly and finish each activity successfully. The Gantt chart for the proj ect is as shown in Appendix 1.
