Online Bus Ticket Reservation System
The use of bus traveling is a large growing business inNigeria and other countries; the manual use of bus reservation is presentlyvery strenuous and also consumes a lot of time by having to stay on a longqueue. For this reason, an efficient system is to be proposed in this paper toease the issue of bus reservation amongst indigenes within the country. Thesystem is a web – based application that allows visitors to check busavailability, buy and pay bus ticket online. In this paper, the proposed bus reservationsystem was developed using Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), PHPHypertext Preprocessor (PHP), Structure Query Language (SQL), Ajax, CascadingStyle Sheet (CSS), and JavaScript.
Keywords:
Online ticket bookingsystem,
Online reservation system,
Online Bus Ticketing System,
Bus ticket booking system,
Ticket booking system
Introduction
The Online Bus Ticket Reservation System is a web-basedapplication that allows visitors check bus ticket availability, buy bus ticketand pay the bus ticket online (Asaad, Ayad and Hayder, 2012). This system isestablished for all the home/office users after gaining access from theadministrator. According to Invaderzim (2011), Online Bus Reservation Systemprovides bus transportation system, a facility to reserved seats, cancellationof seats and different types of enquiry which need an instant and quickreservation. This system can be used by the users in performing onlinereservation via internet for their all business purposes. Users can use thisprogram directly on their websites and no need to install it. The use of bustraveling is a large growing business in Nigeria and other countries; hence busreservation system deals with maintenance of records of each passenger who hadreserved a seat for a journey. It also includes maintenance of information likeschedule and details of each bus (Shivaji, 2010). Also, we get to know thatthere are many operations, which they have to do manually. It takes a lot oftime and causes many errors. Due to this, sometimes a lot of problems occur andthey were facing many disputes with customers. To solve the above problem, andfurther maintaining records of items, seat availability for customers, price ofper seat, bill generation and other things, we are offering this proposal ofreservation system. The reservation system has three modules. First modulehelps the customer to enquire the availability of seats in a particular bus atparticular date, the second module helps him to reserve a ticket and with thethird module he can cancel a reserved ticket. However, since the currentreservation system is still conducted manually and separately at each branch,contact must be made by each branch’s front-officer to the head office for eachcustomer’s enquiry in order to get the latest update on schedule, seatavailability and other reservation-related information; as well as to avoidduplicate bookings or over-capacity.
There is also a physical limit to the reservationavailability as each branch only operates during certain hours and reservationscan only be made on-the-spot. These limitations are not the only issues thecompany is currently facing.
Other factors thatcreate problems include human errors (e.g. miscalculations in ticket price,mistakes in noting passenger data, etc.), the fluctuation of passengers duringcertain periods of time that causes a bottleneck in the check-in processbecause of the inability of the frontofficer to multitask and the lack ofoverview or report of the on-going business; making it difficult for thecompany to judge past/current performance or plan future improvements. Lookingat these problems and limitations, it is clear that both the company and thecustomers require an integrated reservation system that is more efficient ininformation update and reservation handling and also easy to use. Electronictickets, or e-tickets, give evidence that their holders have permission toenter a place of entertainment, use a means of transportation, or have accessto some internet services.
Bus Ticket Reservation System enables the customer to buybus ticket, make payment, and ask for information online easily. Furthermore,staff can sell bus ticket using Bus Ticket Reservation System after check busticket availability for the customer and print the bus ticket to the customerthat queue up in the counter.
The method to solvethis problem is to create an online buying bus ticket system. Customer can buythe bus ticket over the Internet, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and the busticket can't be lost, stolen or left behind. In addition, the online systemlets the customers check the availability of the bus ticket before they buy busticket (Wee, 2007). Furthermore, customers no need to pay cash to buy busticket because they can pay the bus ticket by using deposit slip number orderby bank.
Overview
Bus Ticket System Busticket booking during the offline era posed various difficulties to thecustomers as well as the bus operators. Offline ticket booking reduced thescope of customers to choose different options based on their travel criterion(Gayathry, 2013). It also increased the franchising cost for the bus operators.At the same time, the bus operators were also finding it difficult to monitortheir bus seat filling information. Many small and medium bus serviceorganizations do not have their own online bus ticket booking system. OnlineBus ticketing system web portal is a total internet ticketing operationsoffering the benefit of total in-house management of bus schedules, ticketbookings, ticket sales, report generation, and other business functionsassociated with ticket sales (Melisa, 2007). It also offers the power ofdecision making to customers to make a ticket booking through bus operators’popularity, performance and ranking. This powerful Internet based ticketbooking system that allows a full control of not only on the ticketing inventory,but also the site’s content. According to Melisa (2007), stated the basiccomponents of an Online Bus Ticketing System web portal that provides enhancedservice to the bus operators and customers consist of the following: • Captureof customer information such as name, address, phone number and e-mail address• Price list • Bus operators ranking • Seating chart • LoyaltyPoints/Redemption • Search engine • Payment information • Organization'sadvertisement/slogan, phone number, fax number, and address • Comments andsuggestions section / option • Reports
CW Ticket Reservation System
CW ticketing could beextended to major entertainment and touristic sites and thus facilitate accessto major points of interest within cities, making e-ticketing also interestingfor travelers. Urban tourism is the fastest growing tourism sector in the world(Paskaleva, 2014). In public transport, e-ticketing systems are not only meansof payment but process huge amount of information which offer a large range ofpossibilities to make public transport easier to use, to manage and to control.They offer as well opportunities to introduce integrated pricing structure thatare not easy to implement with traditional payment tools. Electronic ticketingtechnologies are classified according to the way they are used for payment. Thecloser the card is to the payment system, the more reliable the transaction is,but the more constraining it is for the user (Mezghani, 2008). Therefore, thelong-term objective is for the customer to be able to pay for public transportwithout having to show or validate any card, relying on fully automatic farepayment. Public transport operators have been trying to replace paper-basedtickets with electronic media, and many countries have implemented or are aboutto introduce e-ticketing systems. The main characteristic of eticketing is thattickets are sold and stored in electronic devices. However, the benefits of acomprehensive eticketing system for public transport operators are hard toquantify, as the main aim of e-ticketing is an improved service quality. Inmonetary terms, e-ticketing could reduce administrative costs as fewer cashiersare needed, fare processing times could be reduced and a better throughput ofpassengers could be allowed (Maike, 2014). Moreover, fare evasion and fraudresulting from cash handling could be reduced and better price differentiationwould be possible. E-ticketing enables a better integration of alternativeservices into the scheme, making it more attractive for customers to use it(PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2011). Due to accurate data on passenger flows itmight also help to better exploit the network’s capacities and to improve theuser experience by setting up tailor-made services for individual passengers.Costs apply that can be easily quantified, e.g., investment and operationcosts, particularly the initial one-off costs (e.g., readers, software andconsultancy on the scheme design). Integrated schemes appear to be particularlycost intensive, as different applications need to be connected (Wood, Downer,Toberman, 2011). Additionally, running costs for marketing, maintenance andreplacement need to be considered. Costs apply for training staff or resolvingpassenger disputes and for setting up a (regional or even national) clearinghouse responsible for centralized data and fare collection. The fear ofoutsourcing their expertise and responsibilities in ticketing to a third partyof suppliers remains a worry to public transport operators (Turner &Wilson, 2010).
Methodology
Description of Proposed System The system is very simple indesign and to implement. The system requires very low system resources and thesystem will work in almost all configurations. It has got following features: •It will ensure data accuracy. • Records will be efficiently maintained by DBMS.• Availability of seats can be enquired easily. • Passengers can also canceltheir tickets easily. • Minimum time needed for the various processing. • Itwill provide better Service. Shuchi, G. (2008) stated that system design is tocreate a technical solution that satisfies the functional requirements for thesystem. At this point in the project life cycle there should be a FunctionalSpecification, written primarily in business terminology, containing a completedescription of the operational needs of the various organizational entitiesthat will use the new system. The challenge is to translate all of thisinformation into Technical Specifications that accurately describe the designof the system, and that can be used as input to System Construction.
System Requirement
The requirementdefinition is concerned with the analysis of the existing system with the aimof determining and structuring the requirement of the proposed system. It isachieved with the aid of user requirement. The Analysis stage was specificallycarried out in focus of the functionality dataflow at Young Legacy LineTransport Division.
Requirement Specification
Requirement Specification a complete description of thebehavior of a system to be developed and may include a set of use cases thatdescribe interactions the users will have with the software. In addition italso contains nonfunctional requirements. Non-functional requirements imposeconstraints on the design or implementation (such as performance engineeringrequirements, quality standards, or design constraints)
Data Flow Diagram
Data flow diagram is used to show the flow of data fromexternal entities into the system. It is used to represent the physical andlogical area of an information system. The data flow diagrams are pictorial orgraphical representation of the Online Bus Ticket Reservation System. The dataflow diagram covers all the processes and data storage area, which takes placeduring any transaction in the system.
CONCLUSION
Nowadays, busagencies are taking important role in transportation, and to make reservationreliable they need a strong system that they will make reservation easier,faster and safer. This project designed to meet requirements of a busreservation system. It has been developed in XHTML, PHP, CSS, JAVASCRIPT anddatabase has been built in MySQL. By using this application, the company canprovide reservation services and information to their customers without thelimitation of office hours or manpower. Not only does it let customers booktrips around the clock from any location with an internet connection but it isalso designed for use by the company to internally manage their businessprocesses; minimizing human errors and overcoming difficulties and problemsthat arose in the previous system
