Taxi Booking App: Application Development and Implementation Project

This project analyzes the development and implementation of a taxi booking application for Premium Corporate Cabs, weighing the pros and cons of using a pre-existing, off-the-shelf application versus building a custom one. The project recommends modifying an existing Android application, citing its robustness, cost-effectiveness, and rapid deployment advantages. It details business process reengineering, transitioning from a manual, phone-based system to an IT-driven model with an Android app. Key features include customer sign-up, booking, payment, and hotel information integration. The project outlines backend requirements, including cloud servers with NoSQL databases and the use of both SQL and NoSQL databases. It includes use case diagrams for both customer and admin functionalities, a detailed cost breakdown, and an implementation plan involving the modification of an open-source application from GitHub. The project also covers integration, testing (unit, security, black box, alpha, and beta testing), and evaluation strategies, emphasizing the importance of user reviews and feedback for continuous improvement. The final step involves launching the app on the Google Play Store.

Running head: TAXI BOOKING APP
Taxi Booking App
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Choosing Pre-existing apps over Purpose built apps
There have been tons of debates over the years regarding the purchase and use of the
right application when it comes to managing business foundations. In this case study, another
of the same situation was come across. The Taxi Company stakeholders were in little
dilemma over whether they should go with a pre-existing application that fulfills their scope
of requirements, or should they try to build a custom made application of their own from the
very scratch.
Purpose built applications are sometimes preferred more over their counterpart pre-
existing applications. Purpose built apps can be made by keeping in mind all the core details
and requirements of a business. However, there are a lot of cons that come with purpose built
application when it comes to a small business system. Here, choosing a pre-existing
application might come in handy. Even though it is possible that the chosen existing
application might not have all the features as needed by the client, but they are in demand of
an android application, the source code of the purchased application can always be toyed with
and modified on wish. Therefore, the Premium Corporate Cabs representatives are advised to
modify and use an existing application to represent their business system online.
These applications are sometimes known as off-the-shelf applications. These are
generally highly robust as compared to newly built custom applications. These applications
are thoroughly tested and used in the past. When a company purchases and starts using the
application, it is believed that the application has already gone through many updates and bug
fixes. These applications have been there for a longer period of time and have grown
tremendously in terms of their usability and security features. Another one of the biggest
reasons over choosing a pre-existing application is that they can be afforded at a cheaper rate
compared to purpose-built applications, where tons of resources are required in the

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development process and also the time frame from the development is often inexplicable.
These too have been built keeping in mind the business needs of many a customers and hence
they come with several built-in features.
Business Process Modelling
AS-IS Model
TO-BE Model
Business Process Reengineering
Inspired from the recommendations from Vom et al., 2015, the business will be
changed by vast margins on implementation of the new business model. The current business
model is considered to be outdated in the modern tech-savvy society. The existing business
model as depicted by the AS-IS model in figure 1 above, shows that there is however no use
of Information technology in the whole process. The business is carried out over the use of
telephonic conversations. Data is stored manually in the computers which possess tons of
usability and security threats. The model is discarded in the modern society as users

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nowadays do not have all the time in the world to wait on a call until the business side
respondent takes up his or her call and makes a booking. This also wastes a lot of financial
resources of the company and also the customers that they are dealing with. As the company
is growing, so is the customer base. Therefore, with the increase in customers, the
responsibility of the company to upgrade to systems that can satisfy them is also increasing.
The new system that is being recommended will consist the use of information
technology means to conduct the business process. The use of an android application, that is
being thought about will help the company to bring down the entire business process under
one roof. Customers will no longer need to call and wait for their taxis to be booked during
emergency situations, neither will the company have to invest in call handling. This will
allow the business to build a larger customer base. The business can also expand itself based
on the applications features. The online system will also ensure that the data is maintained on
a parallel scale over the business system in secured network architecture. In addition, this will
give the business representatives to make tie-ups with interested Hotels. This will create
awareness about the application and the business as whole and help in its growth both
financially and regarding to popularity. The contact details from the logged in customers can
be used in the process of ethically informing them about the offers and other promotional
campaigns from the company. In addition, this will help to create a strong customer base for
the company, who can be later trusted upon for reviews and improvement recommendations
(Turban et al., 2018).
On using such apps, many business foundations have boomed to great heights in the
recent past. Dube (2015), says the Uber Technologies Inc is one of the greatest examples.
They are now globally acclaimed for cab services in almost 700 cities, worldwide. Having
started off as a small cab rental service provider, they currently have over 12,000 employees
all over the world and is worth 15.7 Billion.

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Details about the new features of IT implementation for this application will be
discussed in the next section.
Recommended Features for the application
Customers will have to sign up into the application and then they can enter their pick-
up and destination locations and book a taxi directly. The application will generate a message
at the administrator’s end and the available taxi will be discharged for pickup. Customers will
also have the freedom to check on the status of their booking, make payments and check their
booking history with the company, all just a click away. The application is thought about to
allow the customers to view the available hotels in or around their chosen vicinity.
The system should also allow admins to login into the system and make necessary
changes to the existing data. The system should also allow the admins to update price details
on a daily basis and add new taxis, hotels, routes and locations to the system. Data analytic
measures shall be taken to provide an in-depth view of the business proceedings.
The non-functional requirements include a well-secured network that would be able to
keep away malicious entries and in the same time be scalable and agile in recovering from
compromised states.
Other recommendable features include a rating system and most importantly a larger
database places to be offered to the customers to be able to ride. This can be made easy
through the use of the Google Maps API available in android.
Backend Software and Hardware requirements
The company is required to rent cloud servers from third-party cloud service
providers in order to store all the data that has been generated with the application all over the
city. The cloud servers needs to have NoSQL database compatibility. This would allow the
business to make full use of the big data technology (Hashem et al., 2015). It must be noted

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that the application will require both SQL and NoSQL backend to be implemented for
various technical reasons, as stated below.
The SQL database would help the company to keep track of their organizational data.
This will store such data in a more sequential and ordered manner. It is better to use a local
server at the company premises to handle this database. Certain business generated data can
also be stored into the SQL database based on the size and frequency of their usage. SQL
provides a more related and mapped stage for linking data elements. This makes it easy to be
stored, modified and retrieved.
Using the NoSQL database, the company can leverage their data off to the cloud
servers. This database technology will provide the business to store and handle enormous
chunks of data. This certainly makes the data more integrated and scalable. Moreover,
NoSQL platforms would also help the application with better scope of data analysis, which is
considered as a very crucial stage of e-commerce applications (Panda et al., 2015).
Apart from the above mentioned backend requirements, the company must have a set
of highly functional computers with database access software, at their office premises for
their employees to operate. These employees are expected to login to the database account
and carry on the backend work for the business apart from doing the lightweight
administration tasks by logging into the application itself.
Use Case Diagrams
Customer side uses:

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Admin Side Uses (Solo functionalities):
The Costing details
To complete any project report and to start with the implementation phase of the
project it is extremely important to plan out a prophesied set of cost listing that would be

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required to fulfill all the functional and non-functional requirements. An abrupt costing
framework of the project has been listed below:
 Purchasing the Software: From $0 to $500 (considering this as an open source
software available on the GitHub)
 Make necessary software-based modifications: $1000
 Hardware for in-office: $7000 (considering $700 per computer for a minimum of 10
computers, initially) + $600 for setting up a local server
 Backend Cloud services: $100 per month from Amazon Web Services
 Promotion and Deployment: $1000
 Other additional expenses: $300
Net costing prediction for the project, leaving apart Consultancy charges: $10500
(approximately).
Implementation Plan
After using and reviewing a handful number of applications available for reuse on the
internet, one open-source software application was finally discovered in the GitHub, one of
the largest repositories of the world. The application to be purchased, modified an used can
be found in the following GitHub account:
https://github.com/AndroidDev-94/MyTaxiService. The application has almost all the
necessary features that the company needs to be implemented into their business. These
include a dual login system for customers and admins. Customers can book taxis, view
booking status and history. Furthermore, the app also allows the users to view hotels
depending on the places they chose to travel. Admins are allowed to view all booking history
and update price charts.

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However, the android application has been designed in a static manner with no
backend database as of yet. A small software team can be made to work on the application
once the application has been bought. The software team will be advised to implement a
back-end database pertaining to the server rules and allowances and take the application
online. Another important inclusion to be made is to develop the Payment Gateway system
by collaborating with some third-party gateway farm.
Lastly, it will be the work of the software design team to make necessary design based
choices to change the look and feel of the application depending upon the theme of the
business.
Time frame: 6 weeks
Integration Planning
In this phase, all the functional components are meant to be integrated as one and then
connected to the backend computer and server systems. This would produce the running state
of the application that is to be used by the users and the admins.
Time frame: 2 weeks
Testing Planning
This is probably the most important phase of the project. The application will need to
be tested thoroughly before it is made to goLive to the audience. However, being a previously
existing software application, it is expected that most of the features are well tested by the
developer and the system is fully functional as per the requirements. Keeping all in mind, the
following test plan is to be implemented to finalize the entire system:
 Unit Testing.
 Security testing.

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 Black box testing.
 Alpha testing.
 Beta testing.
It is expected that the whole testing phase would take up about 4 weeks.
Finally, the project can be made ready to Go Live. Being an Android application, it is
necessary for the application to be launched on the Google Playstore. This will allow the
application to be reached to the fingertips of thousands all over the country.
Evaluation
To evaluate the product, live reviews must be analyzed with utter seriousness. The
verbal feedbacks from customers should be made note of. Most importantly, the ratings and
reviews made by the customers on the Google Play store must be keenly followed and
reverted back to. These are grounds on which the development team can further work upon in
the future and also the company can keep a track of the acceptability of their new venture.

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References
Dube, S. C. (2015). Uber: a game-changer in passenger transport in South Africa?.
Hashem, I. A. T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N. B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A., & Khan, S. U. (2015). The
rise of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information
Systems, 47, 98-115.
Panda, R., Erb, C., LeBeane, M., Ryoo, J. H., & John, L. K. (2015, October). Performance
characterization of modern databases on out-of-order cpus. In Computer Architecture
and High Performance Computing (SBAC-PAD), 2015 27th International Symposium
on (pp. 114-121). IEEE.
Turban, E., Outland, J., King, D., Lee, J. K., Liang, T. P., & Turban, D. C. (2018). Marketing
and Advertising in E-Commerce. In Electronic Commerce 2018 (pp. 361-401).
Springer, Cham.
Vom Brocke, J., Schmiedel, T., Recker, J., Trkman, P., Mertens, W., & Viaene, S. (2014).
Ten principles of good business process management. Business process management
journal, 20(4), 530-548.