Flyliverpool Airline Distributed Reservation System

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

This project is about Airline Reservation System for an airline company called FlyLiverpool. The project will have to be designed as a distributed reservation system for the airline where customers will be able to make inquiries about availability of seats, make reservation, make changes to their booking. The customer will have a different selection of classes, such as business or economy. An Airline reservation system keeps information about customers.

1. Introduction

Today it is widely recognised using an automated information system is essential for managers because most organisations need information systems to survive and prosper. Information systems can help companies extend their reach to faraway locations, offer new products and services, reshape jobs and work flows, and perhaps profoundly change the way they conduct business. [3] Four powerful worldwide changes have altered the business environment. The first change is (i) Globalisation, (ii) Transformation of the Enterprise, (iii) Transformation of Industrial Economies, and (iv) Emergence of the Digital Firm. [3]

This task is intended to discuss an airline reservation system for a company called FlyLiverpool. The task is conceived to have a distributed system approach where passengers may carry out the research with respect to the availability of the seats, the booking form, provide the modification of booking. The customer will have a different selection of categories, while matters or the economy of research.

2. Background

To compete in a fierce complete work, companies have to have a system which allows them to compete globally. This will enable companies to manage and control in a global marketplace and have an edge in contending in competition in world markets. One solution for an airline is to have a Distributed Airline Reservation System (DARS). DARS is a must for airlines have a competitive advantage on their competitors.

DARS is a very convenient system for customers as it gives the customer facility to make booking and reservation easily. It is well known that paper reservation records are slow and tedious. DARS can increase the speed of searching, processing and making reservation therefore giving customers a satisfactory way of booking. Data will be collected in a distributed database system.

3. Functional Requirement

To facilitate the customer to select options, below is listed some of the important features:

Customer to inquire available seats and if seats are available, he/she can make reservations

The customer can reserve seating

Customer can make payment before flight date is due.

Airline to provide customer with payment details

Customer to make payment

Customers can reserve a seat for a flight at least 14 days before the flight’s date. However, if a customer wants to reserve a seat less than 7 days before the flight’s date, he/she has to purchase the ticket immediately.

Explaining the system function:

Customer will be able to inquire about the availability of the seats. Each customer will be able to reserve a seat for a flight. A reserved seat is available only for 14 days before the flight’s date. In case a customer needs to an available seat less than 7 days before due flight date, the customer has to pay for the ticket as the due date is very short.

Once reserved, a ticket must be paid 10 days before the due flight date. In case the customer fails to do so, the reservation is cancelled automatically. However, a customer can modify or change his/her reservation provided that the date of his/her reservation is at least 10 days before the flight.

Whenever a seat is cancelled or changed, the waiting list should be searched in order to fulfil the request from the waiting list.

3.1 DARS is basically a kind of transaction processing environments

The DARS is basically a kind of transaction processing environments. A transaction processing environments (TPS) are the basic system an online booking system where it collects and stores information about transactions, and controls some aspects of transactions. TPS is a basic DARS system as it serves the most elementary day-to-day activities of the company.

TPS supports the operational level of the business as it supplies data for higher-level management decisions. TPS has been often critical to the survival of the company as it mostly for predefined, structured tasks. Therefore it can have strategic consequences need to be fault-tolerant.

4. Non-Functional Requirement

Some important features expected from a DARS system are [4]:

Reliability: Downtime is critical to survival can significantly affect on the company revenue and costs.

Responsiveness: Customer productivity degrades rapidly with decreasing response times. In the highly competitive DARS area, small change can have a lasting competitive disadvantage.

Price/Performance: A good environment has to p1aced at a reasonable cost, for both DARS and the user.

Enhancements: The DARS environment must be satisfying and flexible to let creation of the functionality users may need.

Process and System Integration: The most effective development path for the DARS will be to efficiently and effectively put together with other system. This is an extremely a tricky task to do efficiently knowing the value restrictions of DARS system.

5. Entity-Relationship diagram

Booking Department

D_O_B

PNR

NAME

FLIGHT NUM

_NUM

DATE OF DEP

ROUTE

ADDRESS

STATUS

PASSENGER

CONFIRM

VALID ?

WAITING

BOOKING 1

(ON THE SPOT)

NAME

PNR

MODE OF PAYMENT

CASH

CHEQUE

DEBIT

CREDIT

PNR

FARE

CASH PAID

STATUS

PNR

FARE

STATUS

PAID

PNR

FARE

D NO

STATUS

STATUS

FARE

C NO

PNR

BOOKING 2

(ON THE SPOT)

STAND

BY DATE

BOOKING

DATE

PNR

NAME

TEL_NO

Cancellation

ADDRESS

NAME

Passenger

PNR

TEL_NUM

D_O_B

FLIGHT_ID

T_DATE

ROUTE

STATUS

SEAT

AVAILABLE

?

FLIGHTS

ARRIVAL

DEPARTURE

SEAT

FLIGHT_NUM

COST_ECO

COST_EXE

SEATS_ECO

SEATS_EXE

CANCEL

?

CANCEL

PNR

NAME

T_DATE

D_CANCEL

STATUS

Centralized Environment

Data Flow Diagram

Level 0 Data Flow Diagram

PASSENGER

1.0

GENERAL

ENQUIRY

3.0

BOOKING

COUNTER

4.0

CANCELLATION

2.0

PASSENGER

ENQUIRY

BOOKING

ENQUIRY

NEW PNR INFORMATION

RESERVATION REQUEST

TICKET CONFIRMATION &STATUS

CANCELLATION REQUEST

ACKNOWLEGMENT

REQUEST FOR INFORMATIONFLIGHT/FARE/DISCOUNT

INFORMATION

6.1.2 Level 1 Data Flow Diagram of General Enquiry System

PASSENGER

REQUIRED INFOR MATION

REQUEST FOR INFOR MATION

1.0

GENERAL

ENQUIRY

R

E

Q

U

E

S

T

1.3

DISCOUNT

I

N

F

O

R

M

A

T

I

O

M

1.2

FARE

ENQUIRY

1.1

FLIGHT

ENQUIRY

R

E

Q

U

E

S

T

I

N

F

O

R

M

A

T

I

O

N

R

E

Q

U

E

S

T

I

N

F

O

R

M

A

T

I

O

N

R

I

R

I

R

I

FLIGHT

FARE

DISCOUNT

Level 1 Data Flow Diagram of Passenger Enquiry Section

PASSENGER

NEW PNR OR REQUIRED INFORMATION

ENTRY OF NEW RECORD OR EXISTING

PASSENGER ENQUIRY

PASSENGER

ENQUIRY

2.2

PASSENGER

ENQUIRY

NEW

PASSENGER

R

UNIQUE

PNR

R

INFORMATION

R

E

Q

U

E

S

T

U

N

I

Q

U

E

P

N

R

R

E

Q

U

E

S

T

I

N

F

O

PASSENGER

PASSENGER

PASSENGER

3.0

BOOKING

COUNTER

BOOKING NOW

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

BOOKING

LATERUPDATE

PASSENGER

REQUEST

TICKET(ON THE SPOT)

ACKNOLEDGEMENT(STAND BY)

3.1

ON THE

SPOT

3.2

STAND BY

BOOKING

BOOKING

SET STATUS TO CONFIRM/WAITING

CASH

PAYMENT

STATUS

3.1.1

MODE OF

PAYMENT

STATUS(PAID OR NOT)

CHOOSE MODE OF PAYMENT

ENTRY STAND BY DATE

ACKNOLEDGE

DEVIT NUMBER

STATUS

CREDIT NUMBER

S

T

A

T

U

S

CREDIT

CHEQUE

CASH

PAY CASH

S

T

A

T

U

S

C-

NO

BOOKING

DEVIT

UPDATE

PASSENGER

Level 2 Data Flow Diagram Of Booking

PASSENGER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

REQUEST FORCANCELLATION

4.0

CANCELLATION

SECTION

CANCELLATION

UPDATE

ACKNOLEDGEMENT

4.3

VALIDITY

CHEQUE

4.1

CANCEL

TICKET

4.2

RESHEDULE

A

C

K

N

O

L

E

D

G

E

REQUEST

FOR

CANCEL

PASSENGER

A

C

K

NEW

DATE

PASSENGER

PASSENGER

STATUS

CHEQUE

VALID

Level 2 Data Flow Diagram of Cancellation

Process Specification

In this phase further describe the process of important components of system

7.1 Reservation

A person wants to reserve a ticket.

Then he will provided his full details

In customer form those details were written.

Then computer checks that on which date the person wants the reservation

Date wise it checks the flight’s availability.

If the flight is available on that day

Then system justify the specific flight id

It checks its seat class.

If the passenger want to economic class and window side seat

Then system checks if there any seat in economic class which is inside the window

If seat is empty then system reserved the seat.

Then ticket is generated.

The ticket is confirmed.

If the condition is not applied then it check next seat

And justified it.

If it is not also empty then it checks next by next.

If there is no seat then system take ticket which is not confirmed

Then it gives waiting list.

End.

7.2 Cancellation

A passenger wants to cancel the ticket

Then the system open the delete form

Then click show command

It display all the passenger list

Then select the pnr number and click delete option

The system show record is deleted.

WEB SEMANTICS

1. About Web Semantics

The Semantic Web is a joint group led by the international standards body, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). [8] Semantic Web aims at converting the current web dominated by unstructured and semi-structured documents into a "web of data."

The Semantic Web Activity is an idea of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as it is designed to provide guidance and the definition of the Web. According to the W3C, Semantic Web provides a common framework that is meant data to be shared and reused across application. [8] The term Web Semantic was coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web who is also the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). W3C supervised the development of proposed Semantic Web standards. Tim Berners-Lee defines the Semantic Web as "a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines." [8]

1.1 The Objectives of Semantic Web

The objective of the Semantic Web initiative is to help create a universal medium in the exchange of data. [5] It is seen to help interlink information management, enterprise application, the global sharing of commercial, scientific and cultural data. This is done by putting machine-understandable data on the Web.

The vision of the Semantic Web is to expand values of the Web from documents to data. [7] Data is supposed to be accessed using the general web architecture. This also means forming a general framework that can help data to be shared across application, enterprise, to be dealt with automatically by technologies. [7]

1.2 Web Semantics Basics

Semantic web improves search engine results as searching the web results with an overload of information that might be or not what a user is looking for. With this result, a user might need to go through a load of information which may or may not need at all. But using the semantic web means that the user is linked automatically to relevant data, therefore, providing with a more affluent or relevant set of information. This may also result with potentially more related information that might be also valuable. [6]

Let us use a relevant example here: if a user is searching for flight times to London, ‘London" might also be connected to another relevant information, such as weather reports. In this case a semantic search results with the flight times in London, but there might also appear details about the weather, information of an event in London or UK and other helpful information such as tourist attraction, sightseeing.

By trying to do a search for one specific thing, the semantic web provides the user with information to the search in question. Technically, semantic web allows machines to grasp the "semantics, or meaning, of information strewn across cyberspace." [6]

Web semantics connects sets of data by drawing together relevant pieces of information from many online sources, such as blogs, external websites and data sets, online journals and e-books. The results from a search can also be sorted and catalogued for the reader’s convenience using a variety if contextual facets such as listing the number of content items associated with a given concept to show, at a glance, the volume of material available. The outcome is a much more effective and helpful experience of online searching – ultimately reducing the amount of time involved in finding relevant content.

The basic mechanism of semantic web is made of: [6]

Triples: This is a way which describes content things and it is inferred across a wider data set;

Linked Data: This is a set of finest perform for pulling out the data. It supports connections and stress data interconnections;

Resource Description Framework : This is a framework for revealing and sharing data on the web.

Ontology: This is about the machine readable format of interaction between thoughts often based on a restricted vocabulary or taxonomy;

Mash-up: It is an application that blend data from multiple sources to make something novel.

The advantage with the semantic web is that it is a groundbreaking technology which has an innate end user as it can help us in business if applied to a real requirement within any given situation. [6]

According to W3C [7] Semantic Web technologies can be used in an assortment of application areas. Some of these applications are:

It can be used in data integration where data in various locations and various formats can be integrated into one;

In resource finding and arrangement to make available better, domain-specific search engine capabilities;

In cataloguing for describing the content and content connections presented at a specific Web site, page, or digital library;

By intelligent software agents to make easy knowledge sharing and exchange;

In the content evaluation;

In describing collected works of pages that represent a single logical "document";

For describing intellectual property rights of Web pages.

It is believed that the Web can attain its full ability if it turns out to be a place where data is shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. [4] The hope of data management, integration and pursuit could remain in semantic web technology. [4]

Sharing of information is becoming a major task within all organisations. To gain a greater level of productivity, improve organisational agility while at the same time simplifying organization’s activity, technology such as web semantic is the right solutions for the organisations.

To enact the objectives of web semantics, one important element is to delineate the relations among data on the Web. Such relationships can be set up between any two resources, there is no notion of "current" page. [7] Another important variation is that the relationship itself.

Information retrieval by searching information on the web is not a fresh idea but has different challenges when it is compared to general information retrieval. Different search engines return different search results due to the variation in indexing and search process. Google, Yahoo, and Bing have been out there, which handles the queries after processing the keywords. They only search information given on the web page, recently; some research group’s started delivering results from their semantics based search engines. However, most of them are in their initial stages. Until none of the search engines come to close indexing the entire web content, much less the entire Internet.

2. Semantic Search Engines

Semantic is the procedure of conveying adequate meaning to affect an action. A series of

symbols can be employed to communicate value, and this communication can then influence actions. Semantics has been the force which motivated the next generation of the Web. It is the centre of the task of semantics for a programmed approach to exploit web resources.

Semantic also point out that the sense of information from the web can be exposed not just by users, but also by computers. Semantic Web was fashioned to widen the scope of web and make data uncomplicated to reuse everywhere. Semantic web is being developed to overcome the following restrictions of the current Web.[9]

The web content lacks a proper structure regarding the representation of information.

Uncertainty of information following poor interconnection of information.

Automatic information transfer is lacking.

Incapable with dealing with large number of users and content ensuring trust at all levels.

Inability of machines to understand the provided information due to lack of a universal format.

In the web environment, it difficult for the machine to understand the information provided by the user. When the information is dispersed in web, there are some problems in search engine some of these are:[9]

How can a search engine map a query to documents where information is available but

Does not retrieve in intelligent and meaning full information?

The query results produced by search engines are distributed across different documents

How search engine can recognize efficiently such distributed results?

Obviously, semantic web can work out the first difficulty in web with semantic remarks to produce intelligent and significant information by means of query interface device and ontology. The Semantic web needs solve extremely hard problems in the areas of knowledge representation, natural language understanding. [9]

Current web is the biggest global database that lacks the existence of a semantic structure, and

hence it makes difficult for the machine to understand the information provided by the user. When the information was distributed in web, we have two kinds of research problems in search engine i.e.

How can a search engine map a query to documents where information is available but does not retrieve in intelligent and meaning full information?

The query results produced by search engines are distributed across different documents

How search engine can recognise resourcefully such distributed results?

Semantic web can solve the first problem in web with semantic annotations to produce intelligent and meaningful information by using query interface device and ontology. Other one can be solved by the graph-based query models. The Semantic web would require solving extraordinarily difficult problems in the areas of knowledge representation, natural language understanding. [9]

2.1 Some Important and Common Issues in Web Semantics

Some common issues in the current semantic search engines and methods are concluded as follows: [9]

Low precision and high recall: Some Intelligent semantic search engines cannot show their significant performance in improving precision and lowering recall. In Ding’s semantic flash search engine, the resource of the search engine is based on the top-50 returned results from Google that is not a semantic `search engine, which could be low precision and high recall.

Identity intention of the user: User intention identification plays an important role in the intelligent semantic search engine.

The request terms to fit user intention, so that the service provided will be more suitable to the user.

Individual user patterns can be extrapolated to global users. In early search engine that offered disambiguation to search terms. A user could enter into a search term that was ambiguous (e.g., Java) and the search engine would return a list of alternatives (coffee, programming language, island in the South Seas).

Inaccurate queries. We have the user typically domain-specific knowledge. And users don’t include all potential.

Synonyms and variations in the query, actually user has a problem but is not sure how to phrase.

3. Conclusion

Web semantics is an important issue in today’s web service environment. In this project, I have discussed some of the most important issues related to web semantics.

As discussed above, the objective of the Semantic Web initiative is to create a general intermediate for the exchange of information and data. The technology is seen to help interweave information management, enterprise application, the global sharing of commercial, scientific and cultural data. This is done by putting machine-understandable data on the Web. The dream of the Semantic Web is to increase ideals of the Web from documents to data.