1.1 Introduction
The Vehicle Breakdown Service Station Locator gives accurate information about nearest garage or workshop facilities around a particular area allowing users to reduce the amount of time required searching the mechanic garage once the incident happens. Travelling is a delightful experience which everyone is experienced. Breakdowns of cars and bikes have different triggers. The vehicle may or may not need to be towed, depending on the nature of the problem. In such an ambiguity, the user may be in a dilemma and does not understand what needs to be done and few people don’t even know the location mechanic. A user who does not possess any mechanic work shop’s contact number can only rely on the help of others passing along with them and there is a threat of being scammed. The development of this Vehicle Breakdown Service Provider System dominant centre of attention is to overcome the flaws of applications which are in the market. The application will use the user's current location to decide the nearest mechanic workshop or their garage available and display all the remaining mechanic shops in ascending order of the distance from the user. In such situations getting help from a person who is having in detail practical knowledge about vehicles is a life saver. The user should give their location and details around an area are based up on the distance which are calculated by Google maps and are shown as messages (Rashmi et al., 2018).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
The first commercially developed directory was in 1994 by Yahoo! which compiled webpages and placed them in logical categories (Fabos, 2003). Then in 1998 came the Open Directory Project, a non-commercial endeavor, also the largest known directory made up of volunteers around the globe. Directories have become an important component to searches in that they provide massive lists of indexed pages to feed search engine providers which in turn may provide adequate search results to individual searches.
The information system designed to more closely manager’s needs and the system set up as major computer application area. The Management Information System (MIS) as a computer-based system makes information available to users with similar needs. Manager used the output information. The earlier studies shown that MIS could used to manage car rental, expected to accelerate as well as archiving services to customers better and safer, making it easier when required at any time. The online implementation of management information system provided and supported the customers for reservations, assist management in knowing rental car inventory at a specified time, to process transactions between branches car rental, transportation transaction processing, which supports satisfactory service to customers and support the company’s operational processes (Bayu, 2011).
The vehicle location tracking systems are designed to assist corporations with large number of automobiles and several usage purposes. A Fleet management system can minimize the cost and effort of employees to finish road assignments within a minimal time. Besides, assignments can be scheduled in advanced based on current automobiles location. Therefore, central fleet management is essential to large enterprises to meet the varying requirements of customers and to improve the productivity (Krishna et al., 2010). So taking in action all these things we are going to design and develop a machine, which will track the real time location of the vehicle using blue tooth technology with the help of an android base mobile phones.
Mobile computing and communication devices now provide access to information from nearly anywhere, and many of these devices know where they are. Geographic information can be personalized to deliver valuable location-aware services. However, because geographic databases are quite large, a mobile phone must be connected to a network to access such services. This limits opportunities for small-footprint and peer-to-peer services on phones, or services that operate even when the phone is not connected to a network. Geographic information can be personalized based on its relevance to the user, with appropriate descriptions or granularity to deliver valuable location-aware services.
A search engine is a software tool that crawls the web searching for information (Ogunsote et al., 2003). These are searchable database of internet files collected by a computer program called a wanderer, robot, spider or crawler. These computer programs routinely scour the web to identify and index web pages then return these pages on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The software used by each search engine works a bit differently. Consequently, the same search conducted with different search engines will yield different results. The information may be a mix of web pages, images and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in databases or open directories which are maintained in real-time by running an algorithm. They constantly search the web for new and updated pages by going through from one Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to another URL until the referenced site is visited on the Internet.
Directories are a collection of websites that are organized by broad subject categories which may be broad (covering all subject areas), or subject specific (focusing on a particular subject). Directories are nothing more than comparatively small databases that may or may not feed on search engine which predates search engines. Unlike search engines that uses computer programs like crawler to rank and index web pages, directories are organized and placed by humans. Site owners summit their sites to directories (sometimes for a fee, sometimes for free) and human editors determine the site relevance and whether to or not to include the site in the directory. Directory visitors can search the directory or go through the categories in the directory.
1.3 Statement of the Problem
Investigation revealed that the existing Vehicle Breakdown and Recovery Services Directory Search Engine system is faced with the following problems with regards to vehicle breakdown and recovery services:
- Motorists/commuters that have a vehicle breakdown particularly find it very difficult to locate auto-mechanics who can fix their vehicle’s specific problem especially when in a new locality.
- The existing system does not have a mechanism that allow users to send notifications (through SMS) about a user’s vehicle breakdown to the nearest auto-mechanic that offers vehicle recovery services.
- Based on the aforementioned problems this research work solves the problem of locating the nearest auto-mechanic workshop offering vehicle recovery services. Distressed motorist with a smart phone with location-awareness enabled can search for available workshops within the vicinity where his/her vehicle broke down.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to design and develop a Mobile-Based Vehicle Breakdown and Recovery Services Directory Search Engine Using Location-Awareness. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop a software that will:
- Investigate the existing system and carryout extensive review of state of the art.
- Enable the user search through an auto-mechanic directory using location awareness.
- Incorporate a notification mechanism (SMS) where a distressed user can send notification to the searched auto-mechanic offering vehicle recovery services.
- Implemented using web based programming language such as; JavaScript, Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) and MySQL Database Management System (DBMS).
1.5 Significance of Study
This study will benefit motorists that are new to a particular location and are searching for information about workshops offering vehicle breakdown and recovery services in a particular location. The significance is that the idea can be expanded to other relevant businesses such as shopping malls, restaurants etc.
The research project will help solve the numerous problems associated with the manual way of doing things. Errors, waste of precious time will be eliminated with the system. This will in turn enhance productivity and efficiency in the organization.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of the Study
The study focuses on the A Mobile-Based Vehicle Breakdown and Recovery Services Directory Search Engine Using Location-Awareness. The system will be designed using MYSQL and PHP programming languages.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definitions of Terms
Commercial Vehicle: This is any vehicle used within the campus for commercial purposes.
De-registration: This is the process of cancelling all registration pertaining to a vehicle
Drivers permit: This is the permission given to vehicle owners and drivers to do business with their vehicle on the campus
