St.

Mary University
School of graduate studies
Department of computer Science

Research proposal on: Design and development of car rental controlling

mechanism (Case study: BRC Company in Addis Ababa

Prepared by:
Etsegenet Mekonnen SGS/0007/2011A
Hililna Assefa SGS/0016/2011A
Endale Daba SGS/0005/2011A
Gammachiis Temesgen SGS/0011/2011A

Submitted to: Tibebe Beshae (PHD)

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

1
Table of Contents
Background ................................................................................................................................................... 1
Problem statement ....................................................................................................................................... 2
Objective of the project: ............................................................................................................................... 3
General objective: ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Specific objectives ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Approach/methodology................................................................................................................................ 4
Research method ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Data collection .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Analysis ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Validity and reliability .............................................................................................................................. 4
Literature review/related works ................................................................................................................... 4
Scope and limitation of the project .......................................................................................................... 5
Scope of the project:- ............................................................................................................................... 5
Significance of the research .......................................................................................................................... 6
Time plan ...................................................................................................................................................... 7
Budget plan ................................................................................................................................................... 8
References .................................................................................................................................................... 8

2
Background
In most developed countries everybody has its own private car for their extensive use, whereas
developing countries like Ethiopia Since the people annual income is very low they are unable to
have their own car instead peoples use public transportation mechanism like buses taxis for their
daily activities. But all these transportation mechanisms are unable to satisfy the ultimate
transportation need of the people, because some people want to go picnic to far places,
some people wants cars to their wedding ceremony, also for their urgent cases and so on. Addis
Ababa is one of the biggest city in Ethiopia which is the capital city so there are 831,265 vehicles
in Ethiopia. From the entire number of cars, 62 percent of them are found in the nation's capital,
Addis Ababa.

Based on this there are lots of car Rental Company in Addis Ababa like but there is no
controlling mechanism design because of that the ministry of transport did not have full
information. Beside of these, some private organizations are established to alleviate those
transportation problems by renting cars to the people. Car renting is the process of providing cars
for individuals or any other organizations to their extensive use with in limited period of time by
having some agreements and payments with the renter company. The services are extended to
rent construction, automobile and wedding cars and also provide short and long tours for
customers.

1.1 Advantage of Car rental

- Freedom of movement
- Comfort
- Quality of life
- For Business process
- For tourism sector
- Renting a car can become the most efficient transportation to visit
- The car is faster to reach a determined destination.
- Can be guided by GPS or different apps to mobilize by the country.
- The car is a convenient way, contrary to public transport.
- You can define your route and take alternate routes, unlike the public transport.

1
1.2 Disadvantage of car Rental
- In public transportation there is less risk of an accident, technical failure or breakdown than
in car.
- Rental companies indicate how mileage may lead; if it exceeds the limit you must pay a
penalty defined by the rental agency.
- To return the car must be in the same place where it was delivered, otherwise they will be a
charge penalty for changing the place of delivery.
- Gas is in constant price changes, so can be very costly.
- There is traffic congestion on the busiest routes due to the large number of cars.
- The car cannot leave the country borders.
- If there were problems with the bodywork and even the inner, the car rental company may
charge a penalty for car repairs.
There are more advantages than disadvantages, so renting a car offers convenience and speed
when traveling, and Budget Rent a Car has the best solution for you to have your own car
Problem statement
The BRC rental company works has done by way of the customer register by phone or come
directly to the office or BRC stand for registering rental process, so it took a lot of time and
resources required is also increased because each process requires different resources. On rental
system that has run in the x, the company has tried to set up the rental system well. However, due
to limitation manual system and only controlled by some parties within the company, thus
causing the existing report data becomes difficult to manage. BRC as a company engaged in the
car rental requires a rental application system that is able to integrate the conventional rental
toward the concept of online rental. The concept poured on online web car rental supported with
the ability to non-stop access.

For problem definition we try to identify how documents were kept in the company’s office and
try to get some information about current system from staff members. Form our observation of
the current system data we have collected, we have identified the following problems.

2
 Lack of organized data for screening of customer’s agreement documents and relevant
information.
 Lack of announcing return deadline date for the renter.
 Redundant flow of renter information
 The renting process is time and resource consuming
 It is bulky to identify the return date of each rented vehicles
 Inconsistency of tangible reports
 Weak security.
 During reservation a customer reserve a vehicle on phone or expected to go to the
organization for reserving.
The following are Basic Question of this research:-
i. How to controlling car rental industry?
ii. How to design a system for BRC car Rental Company?

Objective of the project:

General objective:
The general objective of this proposal is replacement of the current manual renting process;
customer records and information service section of the company with automate system as well
as designing partially web based car rental system that is easily accessible for any renters

Specific objectives

In addition to the general objective the proposed system has to address some specific objectives.
Among those are: -
 To improve the records of the drivers / clients who have monthly
 Study the existing system and find the solution for the problem.
 Design and build a particular model of this proposed system.
 Set the application system to control the car rental online reservation/rented
 Every day will be changed instead of writing all the information again and again.
 To store and easily track customer’s information
 To check the availability of the customer and vehicles
 Improved planning and management.

3
Approach/methodology
Research method
Our research method is Qualitative design science approach. We are going to design
and implement a controlling mechanism for car rental system.

Data collection
The study uses primary data source which is obtained by interviewing BRC company manger
and experts and also secondary sources from Addis Ababa city transport authority Addis Ababa
city road and Transport bureau
.Population and sampling
Out Sampling method will be convenience sampling method. 5 people form BRC Company, 10
from Addis Ababa city transport authority and 10 Addis Ababa city road , Transport bureau, and
100 random sampling from Addis Ababa population.

Analysis
The study will try to descriptively analyze the data collected from either primary or secondary
sources in order to present the design and implementation of the system.

Validity and reliability

Even though there is no standard instrument for validating, there is no doubt on its reliability
since it is applicable in the communities where the data is collected from by interviewing.

Literature review/related works

Jia-Ning Luo and Ming-Hour Yang according to the authors they try to propose an anonymous
car rental protocol based on NFC technology. Our main contributions include: Users provide
their personal information to a trusted third party (TTP) only. The car hire providers cannot get
users’ real identity. Car rental companies are unable to establish any link between users’ rental
records and users’ identity simply by analyzing the rental history. If there are consumer disputes
or accidents, the rental company can request that TTP reveal users’ identity. Users are free to
choose their preferred vehicle. A customer has to register his identity with a TTP via his NFC
phone. They should request a temporary anonymous license from TTP and sends it to the rental
4
company. If the license is valid, the company issues a ticket for a specific vehicle to the user over
the air. The vehicle authenticates the ticket through the user’s NFC phone. Last, after the ticket is
authenticated, the user is allowed to drive the car. When a car is returned, the rental company can
collect the charges through TTP. If consumer disputes arise or there are accidents, the provider
can request that TTP reveal the user’s identity.

Guan-Jye Liao a , Kuo-Kuang Chu b & Chi-Hua Li according to the researchers they try to
analyze factors affecting car rental management systems, the paper presented about renting a car
is easier than buying one. If consumers purchase cars with cash or by a mortgage loan, the cost
must be higher than the cost of car renting. Since tourism has become increasingly popular,
consumers are more willing to rent cars instead. Also, since the international oil price has kept
mounting, many consumers start to live economical, rather renting a car than buying one. Car
rental industry is itself service oriented; hence, this research intends to explore how the car
industry in Taiwan promotes their corporate image from the perspectives of consumers, which
eventually influences consumers’ purchase intention. Through the analysis of structural equation
model, it is found that the reliability, responsiveness, empathy and tangibility cause positive
effects on the corporate image. Also, the corporate image is significantly related with consumers’
purchase intention.

Scope and limitation of the project

Scope of the project:-

This study focus only and is delimits to the design car rental a controlling mechanism of the
BRC company. Even though the BRC company additional activities are there, the study consider
only the controlling mechanism of car rental system to be design and which are very significant
to address and archive the goal of the access controlling and efficient utilization of car rental
management system.

- Provide online reservation car

- Install GPS device to control
- Registration of new cars
- Provide customer rental information
- categorized cars based on models

5
Limitation of the project

During the preparation of this research proposal study, we believe the analysis will be more
comprehensive if it would involve more expertise from various corners of the country. Due to
time, material and other constraints the project will not encompass the following:-

 Online money transaction( car reservation using credit card )

 Company staff data base

Significance of the research

The significant of this research is in Addis Ababa there is no controlling mechanism which is
online vehicle rental system will help in back office administration by streamlining and
standardizing the procedures .By helping in monitoring of the vehicle activity and overall
business. It will save a lot of time, money and labor, which would be used in transport during
the process of renting the car manually. It will increase the efficiency of the management at
offering quality services to the customers.

As discussed earlier BRC car renting company are storing customer information manually. It is
obviously know manual storing is time consuming, cumbersome and resource wastage task. So
by automating the existing system we can improve the following:-

 Eliminate the manual methods used in automobile organization.

 Stores information of all cars in the organization.
 Provide complete details of rent and non-rent car.
 To manage all rental services (add, modify, cancel a transaction)
 To track all car rentals in a given day
 Configure the devices (GPS) to control the rental car
 Set the application system to control the car rental online reservation/rented
 Facilitating on line rental activities and company promotion
 Accelerating customer requirement and benefits.
 Supplies timely information for the renter.
 Minimizing data redundancy
 Minimizing loose of data.
 Improving communication between raters and renter.

6
Time plan
Table shows a time plan: to design and development of car rental controlling mechanism of BRC company Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
SN Activity Jan Feb March April May

1 Development of the research Proposal

2 Securing ethical clearance

3 Securing budget

4 Ethical clearance from respective Authorities

5 Recruitment and training of data collectors and

supervisor
6 Interview

7 Data collection

8 Data coding, entry and Cleaning

9 Data analysis

10 Thesis write up & submission of first draft

11 Second draft submission
12 Defense

13 Final report submission

7
Budget plan
Budget break down for research proposal- to design and development of car rental controlling
mechanism of x company

Principal investigator: Etsegenet Mekonen, hilina assefa, Endale Daba, Gemmichis,

Advisor: Tibebe Beshahe(PHD)

S. No Description Amount in Birr

1 GPS device $6.49(194.7)
2 Transportation cost 1000
3 Copy and print documents 500
4 Stationary 200
5 payment for assistant data collector 3000
6 payment for assistant data encoder 1000
7 Internet 100
8 External hard disk to make backup 1500
9 Report preparation 500
10 Contingency 2000
11 Total 11994.7 ETB

References
1. https://repositorio.inesctec.pt/retrieve/a5e78936-9c77-46ab-9130-c805f62ac9aa/P-00M-5YW.pdf
2. https://www.racfoundation.org/
3. https://booksc.xyz/book/19252151/67c32a
4. https://www.springer.com/gp/search?facet-
5. An algorithm for self-organization of driverless vehicles of a car-rental service
by J. Alberto Conejero · Cristina Jordán · Esther Sanabria-Codesal
6. An analysis of the corporate image factors affecting car rental management systems by
Guan-Jye Liao, Kuo-Kuang Chu and Chi-Hua Li