Project start

This is more or less day one for my project. I have managed to wade through all the project materials and have a basic overview of what the course requires of me. I have also attended a tutorial in Bristol over the weekend and feel a little more relieved.

Now I have to start whipping my project into shape at this point I have a very vague outline of what I want to achieve and little to no idea how to achieve it. To help me to get a more concrete base to work from I am going to answer the questions the first TMA sets out for me.

First I need a working title. I suppose that for now TAXI BOOKING SOFTWARE will do.

1. What is the problem? As I see it the problem is that at present the taxi office is run on an old fashioned paper based booking service. This was fine when the business was smaller and there was only one taxi controller on at a time. Now only one controller has access to the booking sheets, yet all controllers can take bookings.
2. Why is it considered a problem? This way of working means that there is the possiblity of the same time slot being double booked. Also the secondary controllers must take bookings on booking slips and pass these to the primary controller to enter in the sheets. This means the same booking is being written down twice. Also when it is busy booking slips can go astray in the pile of slips.
3. What might be the benefits of solving it? Less work load for the primary controller who doesn't need to write up other controllers bookings, as well as, their own. Less risk of bookings going astray upsetting customers and risking losing business. Reduced risk of booking clients in time slots that are already full.
4. What might the solution look like? I guess that the solution will consist of a central server that is attached to a database. The database will hold details of existing bookings and how many drivers are available at a set time. There will then be one or more clients which can query the server for available time slots, if there is not one available then it can request what is the nearest pre or post time slot that is available. The clients should be able to lock the time slot they are woking on.
5. What specifically, will I deliver by way of an end-product? Since this project is proof of concept to show the owners how a computer based system can solve some of the present paper based systems problems I don't need to produce an entire working system. I can write the server software with a dummy database backend and then create a basic client to carry out the previously mentioned tasks. This will provide the basic proof of concept that can be further enhanced in the future if the owners give the go ahead.

At the end of this I feel I have a clearer feel for my project and what I aim to achieve. This will probably not be a groundbreaking project or one that is too big to deliver. The full list of owners requirements would overwhelm me in the time I have, but by limiting the scope to a basic prototype I have something I can deliver in the time and something to show the owners and see if they wish to go ahead with the project.