Implementation Of E-Permit System In Public Transport

Introduction

Most, if not all the countries, public transportation is the significantly factor to the nation of a certain country and it should be flexibility. In most of the developing countries, there are numerous number of aspects that lead to the severity of transport problems. One of them is delay in processing permit. So this proposal is about a Public transport route management system, that only manages how commercial vehicles get permit from transport authorities to operate on public road. The proposal will have more detailed and essential aspects of the proposed public transport route management system. The term public transport is used to describe a system used by the public, often a means of transporting passengers in mass numbers, generally a for-hire system that occurs across a fixed route or line.

Background information

The existing system for public transport is totally manual to keep track of all the application and renewal of permits, there is a lot of paper work which consumes a lot of time. This is a very lengthy process to approve the application including finding out the eligibility of the person for the type of permit applied. Information may be distorted as it has to go through a long chain of officials. The application form must be submitted as printed which leads to a high cost on paper. Due to the delay processes when applying for permits a number of people are being affected, some vehicles are illegally carrying passengers as results passengers are at risk of being kidnapped by this pirating vehicles. With the existing system the status of the permit cannot be traced whether the permit is offered to the right vehicle or not. The traffic police cannot easily identify the legal permit and the ownership of the permit.

Furthermore, the proposed public transport route management system will quicken the processes of getting the permits and identifying the illegal and legal permit. This system will enable the applicants to know the approval of the application as faster as the system will be.

Problem statement

Due to the manual systems that are being used to get the permits for some commercial vehicles, people still have to make long queues either when applying or renewing permits. And people still have to visit the department of transport and traffic in order for them to get the permits. All this manual processes leads to the delay of getting permits and some people end up transporting passengers and goods without permission which is illegal.

The current procedure requires an applicant to manually fill the application form and submit it to the public workers and traffic department for approval. They have to wait for approval of application which is given to an independent body which is not always there to approve the application. This independent body is being called when there is a pile of applications and this is the cause of delay of issuing permits.

Project Scope and Constraints

The proposed system is designed for Lesotho transport authorities and traffic police. The system specialized on applying and renewal of commercial transport permits online and also tracking the status of the permit. The system will be allowing the vehicle owners to apply and renewal of A, B, C, D and F permit only. Actually in order to develop the complete system a will take us an academic semester we as system developers. The proposed system will generally manage the application and renewal of public transport vehicle permits. The system will enable the vehicle owners to apply for special permit and submit the application online and the application is forwarded to transport authority who denies or approves it immediately. 5. 0 Feasibility studyIs used to determine the viability of an idea, such as ensuring a project is legally and technically feasible as well as economically justifiable. It tells us whether a project is doable.

Operational feasibility

The telecommunication companies are the good supporting factors, by enabling customers to afford data rates of getting access to the system. Since the system requires internet connection the clients will be able to access the system via their smart phones and their personal computers through the help of the service providers such as Vodacom Lesotho and Econet Telkom Lesotho. The web hosting is required for a system to be accessible online and this will be using free web hosting but later it will be using commercial hosting. Also the use of electricity power will be required as to power devices used in building the system.

Technical feasibility

After accessing and evaluating all necessary technical resources that are available to make the proposed system not to be complete, but also robust, flexible, effective and efficient. Since the proposed system will be completely web based, it is required to use web technologies appropriately. Technology to build the overall system is available. The web technologies that are currently available are as follows - PHP, JSP and servlets, ASP. net, perl/cgi. The system will be developed with PHP as the main development language embedded into HyperText Markup Language (HTML) code, JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). MySql is chosen to be DBMS of the system due to flexibility. All the technologies to be used, are open source software and they are used worldwide and available for free. We also evaluated if our technical team is skillful enough to model or change the system requirements into a functioning system.

Our development team and management team, have technical skills:

• Programming-it is used for coding languages which will generate and construct instructions to perform expected actions and functions for the system.
• Database systems -it is for development of storage platforms for capturing users’ data from the relevant forms, such as registration form, on the web graphical user interface, holding and analyzing such users’ data.
• Systems development methodology-these are the guidelines that will be adhered to and be followed when developing the system.
• Networking -this is the linking infrastructure to coordinate our system with other systems.

Social feasibility

The stakeholders are more interested in both wed based application and mobile application because what they want is the system, this satiation leads us to the big confusion whether are modeling the system as mobile application or web based application. But we end up showing them how important is web based application in terms of accessibility that they can access the system anywhere at any time without wasting a lot of time. And we also give them a clear picture about mobile application that although it’s a portal that is directly to the system, it consumes time and data units when downloading and installing the application.

From the interview research we conducted at different groups of people who owned commercial vehicles, especially people who owned taxis as they always travel to traffic department to apply and renewing permits, all of them gave a good response and showed their interest on web based application and system facilities. The system will be the answer to the problem that they were always facing when they need information and permits services. For the vehicle owners we also interviewed them with the sample of 6 owners, they showed how eager to see the system as it will be answering the problems they actual meet when applying for permit, such as long queues and the delay process of getting permits. The traffic police showed how helpful the system will assist them to identify fake and original permit.

Legal feasibility

The investigations were done as to check if any of the requirements of the proposed system clashes with any governing law or any legal requirements of the country like, transportation acts, data protection acts and social media laws. The evaluation of legal requirements basically the rules of publishing and using data, software and methods.

The system will obey data protection acts that strongly emphasize the vehicle to be given a permission to travel or transporting either people or goods. The system will obey the transport authorities’ acts. All laws and acts of traffic and road safety will be obeyed by the system as it will be keeping all information collected from any clients to be used for the purpose of public transport route management system. Third parties won’t have access to the collected information. The system will be as far safer from lawsuits as possible, as it will obey the country legislation and legal regulations.

Economic feasibility

The exiting manual public transport permit requires paper process and manual entering of data and requires cabinets to stores files, this all requirements are cost.

Proposed system save time and paper cost of manually entering data and generally generating reports, thus, improves communications, as oppose to the existing system manual permit system. This system also reduces labour cost as fewer employees should be needed in entering the data in to the system and processing the information. Personal information would be easily managed by the database thus saving storage space on the cabinets and maintenance. Data redundancy and security issues would be lessened due to the improved backups and security features in the system. The proposed customers will be able to apply for permit anytime as the system will be operating 24/7.

Justification or Significance of the research

Public transport is a very important tool that need to be flexible because not all of us can afford to buy vehicles. Due to the delay processes taken when applying for the permit some people lack patience and they end up taking passengers without permission. As a result, it is easy for bandits to kidnapped people because such cars are not registered with public works and traffic department hence it is difficult to trace such a car. Creating this system where they will be able to apply and renew permits online will speed up the processes.

Transport authorities is no longer allowing people to register their cars due to high increases of public transport cars in Maseru town so this has led to the exchange of permits for those people whose car has wreck and that makes difficult for traffic police to identify the ownership of the permit.

Benefits of the proposed public transport e-permit system

• Permit Process will be faster and reliable as things will be done online.
• Reduces Manual Intervention when applying.
• Applicants are able to access the applications from their places.
• Traffic police are able to identify if the permit offered illegal or legal.

Literature review of the project i. e. topic being done

If not all, most of the countries uses motor vehicles as a form of transport not only to deliver their products/ goods but also to transport the passengers, either through taking trips or for other special purposes. In order for every vehicle to be used for transporting goods or passengers for Commercial purpose essentially requires the permission (permit) of State Government under the provisions of regulations and rules. Permits are issued by State Transport authorities to control and to regulate operation of commercial vehicles.

The system that is being used to apply for the motor vehicle permit is the system that is used by Philippine port authority and the system is called PPA electronic permit management system (PPA e-permit). And this system specializes with the following:

• online application for permit to operate
• online application for port user’s pass and vehicle pass
• monitoring and tracking of application for permits and passes
• online viewing and updating of port user’s profilethis system is only developed for Philippine port authority.

The Proposed public transport e-permit system

The Proposed public transport e-permit system is the only e-permit system that allows the vehicle owners to apply for permits online and the traffic police to identify the illegal and legal permit for a vehicle and manage the number of vehicles holding the permits. The system will provide a connection between the user and the database hence enabling quick retrieval of the information without any intervention from the Transport authority.

Technology and Method to use for developing our system

For developing the system, the following programming languages will be used PHP embedded into HyperText Markup Language (HTML) code, JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). MySql is chosen to be DBMS of the system due to flexibility. All the chosen technologies are widely used in the world and are available for free use. These technologies are all open source software (Mysql, HTML and PHP). The web presence is nowadays essential for business operations, marketing and strategy. The web-based systems are becoming significantly important as the Internet and the World Wide Web have grown into universal function for all people, as a result exceeding most technological advances in our era. Web-based systems and applications always deliver a complex collection of functionality to a large number of different groups of users.

Since the proposed system will dependent on the Web for its whole lifetime, its performance, reliance and excellence to be very important. The proposed system will be developed using the new spiral web-based methodology which is an appropriate methodology for developing kinds of web-based systems. The methodology for developing web based systems divided into eight phases:

• Analysis phase
• Development phase
• Test phase
• Integration and Release phase
• Deployment and training phase
• Quality phase
• Advertisement Phase
• Evaluation phase.

Project Plan and Scheduling

Schedule/WBS Gantt chart

A straightforward Gantt chart or Timeline chart for the development plan is given below. The plan explains the tasks versus the time (in weeks) they will take to complete. Gantt chart shows the project activities from writing of proposal until demo or initial results, as shown on the diagrams below, from the initial and completion.

Deliverables & Milestone

Project scheduling is very important for developing the system. In this Public transport route management system, there are six phase of milestone which is analysis, design, implementation and evaluation.

Requirements gathering stage and Analysis will be completed within 2 weeks, Design will be completed within 1 week, Coding will be completed within 4 weeks, testing will be completed within 2 weeks and Lastly Implementation will be completed within 1 week.

Conclusion

Finally, since we have indicated that the existing public transport is manually to keeping track of all the application and renewal of the permit, what we bring into industry is the system which is going to facilitate process when applying for permit, the main objective of the system is to apply permit online and many other objectives we have indicated. The define scope in the project is going to take us academic semester and to develop this kind of the project We have built skillful team in various tasks specifically programming languages.