Design And Implementation Of An Online Car Rental System

Project and Seminar Material for Computer Science and Computer Engineering

Abstract

This project work, design and implementation of a web-based car rental system which will incorporate the different functional, operational and technical requirement of a dedicated web application for online car rental system. This System will facilitate the functioning of web-based Rental Car store. Each type of car should have a different rental fee per day. Rental fee depends on number of days, brand and how fast the car runs. The system is equipped to answer Customer’s inquiries about the availability and rental fee of various “types” of cars for certain dates in the future. When the customer makes a decision about the “Type” of car and the Dates, the system reserves or earmark the requested type of car for requested dates. The customer is given a “Confirmation Number”. The system processes a car pick up. A customer walks in and supplies either the confirmation number, or name. The system pulls up all the reservation information about this customer. This web-based system is designed using PHP: Hypertext Processor programming language for front -end and MySQL (My Structured Query Language) for back-end storage.

Chapter One

Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Database driven websites are commonplace in the web today. The purpose of designing a website that is database oriented is to bring in dynamism and interaction between the website and its user. To have such liveliness in a website, the data presented to the website users have to be updated frequently without manual intervention. The data is displayed from the database automatically. Such automated process is less prone to errors. But such cannot be said of the manual update process which may be error prone [David Powers, 2010].

Cuzzy Car Rentals (CCR) provide vehicles and other automobiles for hire at a fee, normally charged either on an hourly or a daily basis. Because of the convenience of moving around with a car, car rental business is booming and also there is increased demand for vehicles for hire. For those individuals that own a car, they may use car rental services when their car breaks down or waiting for insurance clearance whereas for those that do not own a car, they may need to use a hired car to get to their destinations rather than using public transport. On occasions like wedding, vacation, house shifting, and tour outside the state and on many other situations people feel the necessity of a vehicle to sort out the problems.

Owing to all the stress involved in the manual method of car renting, there arises the need to design and develop a web-based application for availing transport whenever and wherever possible. This will be beneficial for both renter and transport provider. Now a days, by some clicks only, we can get whatever you want at home. We already know about the online shopping, e-banking etc. Similarly, The Car Rental System is the online facility to book cars online within few clicks only. Some people cannot afford to have a car, for those people this system becomes very helpful. This system includes various cars, as per the customer order and comfort. Once you place the order from the website, the car is delivered to your desired location within the area. For this reason, car hire business is growing, most car rental businesses now have multiple outlets in various cities, and hence the need to have a well-designed and intuitive system that car-hire companies can use to manage staff, vehicles, drivers, and customers (Osman et al., 2017). This project entails a car hire system that can be used by small, medium, or large car hire organizations.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Database driven websites has its demand in so many areas of life. Since the inception of CCR, it has carried out its daily work by providing its service to customers using manual system. Reserving and renting a car is done through phone calls placed to the car operators by intending users, otherwise he/she is expected to go to the organization to make reservation.

Under this manual method, there is little or no record of all the rental activities and customer information. Such manual system is ineffective due to the following bottlenecks and drawbacks associated with it:

1. Communication Problems:

The organization phone may be busy or may not work when customer is calling to make reservation. This makes it difficult for new customers who are trying to get the phone number or the location of the organization. The customers may make unnecessary extra expenses and waste their time. When the car is finally rented, the customers may not get service of the organization 24/7 (twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week), the service thus being limited by time.

2. Problems of Storage:

The customer information and contract made between them are stored on the operator’s memory or a book which might have been torn or damaged due to constant usage. This may lead duplicated reservation of the same vehicle or no reservation at all. Also, due to many customers, the organization may not be able to render its services promptly to them. The customer information and contract made between them may be difficult to recall due to massive collection of data.

3. Incorrect Report Generation:

When generating report, it takes time and it may not be easy to manage and analyze work due to massive collection of data and the generated report may not be accurate.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The general objective of this project is to develop interactive web-based system for Cuzzy Car Rental (CCR) organization that will enable customers to reserve a vehicle of choice online from anywhere. A system where every work process is done using computer, thus there is no need for expensive, difficult and time-consuming hard copies.
To achieve the stated objective, the following specific objectives were laid out:

To improve the communication between the drivers and clients by providing constant avenues like email, hot line, WhatsApp number on the website
To create a secured database which stores all vehicle information (plate number, etc.) with a restricted access. To store and easily track driver’s information and to check the availability of the driver. Details of drivers who have monthly contracts are written only once and only the status change every day instead of writing all the information again and again.
To develop a nice user interface that easily tracks all repair records of the vehicle, all transport records of the vehicle and check the availability of the vehicle.
To manage all rental services (add, modify, cancel a transaction) and track all car rentals in a given day, month or year, thus providing accurate report.

1.4 Scope of the Study

Scope of this project is to make a web-based application for Cuzzy Car Rental. but it also used for any other companies. The system has the basic requirements of a car renting company. As the system is web based, it is going to run on a browser and will require internet connection to be accessed. For this project purpose, the system is hosted on a local host. The developed website can be used for:

i. Advertising the Company:

Advertisement about new services to keeps the customer informed about the new developments in the company.

ii. Managing Vehicle Information:

Such as vehicle financing, vehicle maintenance, driver management, fuel (petrol) management and health and safety management.

iii. Online Reservation:

The customer can registration online.

iv. Generate Report:

Reports all information on the current day.

1.5 Significance of the Study

First of all, it would be a growth-oriented process to car rental organizations by providing efficient means to serving value-conscious customers for all of their car rental occasions. Secondly, it will consistently deliver a quality product, friendly service and great value that make customers confident that the company is their best car rental choice.

This study will also be beneficial to scholars who are researching the field of web design as it will serve as a reference material to them.

1.6 Limitations of the Study

a. Lack of Source Codes:

My main limitation was during the actual software development. There are many tutorials about web development, but source codes relating to car rental service was difficult to obtain, thus only codes relating to abovespecific objectives were written.

b. Financial Constraint:

Lack of transport fare to and from my case study. This was another factor that limited the development of this work as some information was generalized instead of being specific to Cuzzy Car Rentals.

c. Reluctance by the Respondents:

Cuzzy Car Rentals staff were a little diplomatic in giving information fearing that the information sought might be used against them and dent their image even though I gave them my word that no such thing will happen.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Car Rental System:

A car rental, hire car, or car hire agency is a company that rents automobiles for short periods of time, generally ranging from a few hours to a few weeks.

Web based:

Web information system, or web-based information system, is an information system that uses Internet web technologies to deliver information and services, to users or other information systems/applications. It is a software system whose main purpose is to publish and maintain data by using hypertext-based principles.

Chapter Five

Conclusion and Recommendation

5.1 Conclusion

This web-based car rental system is developed to be an interactive web-based environment for car rental services that intends to overcome the problems faced by users and car rental service organizations. For customers, the proposed CCR online rental management system will provide car recommendation service to help users to choose the suitable car for them to rent based on their budget, the number of passengers, and their journey distance. Besides, users may view the car catalogue provided in the system, while for the organization, CCR online is able to produce transaction report and thereby able to make informed business decisions. To access the administrator page, CCR provides security access level for authorized administrator only.

Today, various online systems make the life of human very comfortable. By some clicks only, we can get whatever we want at home. We already know about the online shopping, e-banking, etc. Similarly, The Car Rental System is the online facility to book cars online with just few clicks. Some people cannot afford a car, for those people this system becomes very helpful. This system includes various cars to suit the customer’s needs as per budget and comfort.

Based on research conducted while executing this project, some specific conclusions can be drawn as follows:

This application can help CCR offer timely and effective web-based car rental service
This application makes transaction processing and data management that occurs in Rental easier for CCR
This application will help CCR give reliable transaction report
Data storage which is already computerized will ease CCR’s data storage, retrieval and report
CCR will experience a huge upsurge in customer patronage because customers can comfortable make reservations.

5.2 Recommendations

Some suggestions exist that can be considered against CCR even with the use of this system, namely:

Need to open branches in other major parts of the city in order to achieve more growth and development
The interface can be made more attractive
It is necessary to develop the credit card payment system, so that when the customers do not have a PayPal account, they can pay with credit cards.