52.234 Systems Analysis and Design
Class Project
Second Stage
Deadline: Friday, March 11
Weight: 100 out of 200
Deliverables:
Supporting
Material, Assumptions and Advice:
·
The consistency between the
various deliverables is of paramount importance.
·
The information below is by no
way complete. For any additional information or any clarifications regarding
the provided information, you should use the class newsgroup.
After
the initial requirements elicitation phase was carried out it became clear that
the train ticket reservation system should support three particular aspects of
functionality: (a) the purchasing of ticket for trips by customers, (b) the
checking of passenger ticket validity, and (c) the monitoring of ticket sales.
More
specifically, customers can purchase tickets for particular trips. Each trip
has a start and a destination, which are either rail stations serviced by
Stinking Trains S.A., or bus stations that are part of the collaborating bus
routes. Trips are either single or return with each leg of a trip taking place
on a particular date. A trip may be direct from the start to the destination,
or may include a number of changes. Changes take place at particular rail or
bus stations and link different services, either rail or bus ones. As a result,
a trip contains one or more services. Each ticket is for one trip, but may be
for any number of passengers. There are three types of tickets: (i) fixed ones,
which are for a particular date and particular services that cannot be changed,
(ii) flexible ones, which are also for a particular date and particular
services that may subsequently be changed, and (iii) open ones, which are for a
particular date but for any services of that day. Fixed and flexible tickets
guarantee passengers a seat, while open ones do not. In general, customers
should not be allowed to buy tickets for services that have no available seats.
The price of the ticket depends on the number of passengers, the services
comprising its trip and its type. Tickets can either be paper or electronic
ones depending on the way in which the purchase was carried out (e.g. online or
phone purchases issue electronic tickets, while machine or desk purchases issue
paper tickets). In both cases a ticket code is produced that can be
subsequently used to check ticket validity. Payment for tickets can be either
in cash, using a debit or credit card, or by mobile phone charge. In the case
of card payment customers needs to provide their card details and address,
while in the case of mobile phone payments they need to provide their mobile
phone number and a special code provided by their service provider.
Furthermore, when customers purchase tickets, besides their trip details, they
can specify their preferences with respect to the number of changes they want
and the system should list all available services satisfying the customers’ requirements.
In the
case of flexible tickets customers may later change the date and/or time of
their ticket. For this purpose, they either need to use the paper ticket itself
or the code of the electronic ticket. In all cases when a change is carried out
a new ticket is issued. Whether the new ticket is paper or electronic depends
on how the change was carried out (i.e. online, on the phone, etc.). Note that
a change of ticket may require additional payment from the customer in the case
that the new trip is more expensive than the original one.
In order
to support the purchasing of tickets the system needs to maintain information
about the various services. Both rail and bus services start from a particular
station and finish on another, and they take place on particular date and time.
Note that on the same date there may be a number of services from the same
start to the same finish at different times. A service includes a number of
intermediate stations, which are either all rail stations in the case of rail
services or bus stations in the case of bus services. Most stations are either
a rail or a bus ones, but some are both. Trips can use only part of a
particular service, i.e. they do not have to go from the start to the finish
but may instead only go through a number of the intermediate stations. Moreover
each service is carried out by either a train or a bus that has a limited
capacity of seats. As trips may only use part of a particular service their
corresponding seat is only taken during that part.
The
checking of passenger ticket validity is carried out either by ticket
controllers of Stinking Trains S.A. or of the bus companies that offer
collaborating routes, or by automatic machines (e.g. electronic gates). In all
cases this process involves using the ticket code to retrieve the trip details
and to check whether use of the particular service on which the check is
carried out is covered or not. Moreover, the checking of paper tickets involves
a ticket reader that reads the code of the ticket, while the checking of
electronic tickets involves keying in the ticket code. Note that for tickets
that do not guarantee a seat use of a particular service may be refused in
order to avoid overcrowding.
The
monitoring of ticket sales is only available to Stinking Trains managers and
finance and service-planning staff. Managers can view summarised information
regarding the overall tickets sales and the utilisation of particular services,
the overall ticket sales of the company, the money collected and the real
revenue (i.e. the part of the collected money that remains after service
charges and payments to collaborating bus companies have been made). Service
planning staff can only view overall ticket sale and utilisation of particular
routes in order to decided whether changes in capacity are necessary. Finance
staff can view all the information available to managers and also summaries of
the amount to be paid in the various collaborating companies as either service
charges or bus ticket sales.
Staff
members of Stinking Trains S.A. are responsible for the maintenance of the
information in the system. In particular, finance staff is responsible for
updating the pricing information for the different services and ticket types,
service-planning staff is responsible for entering and removing rail routes and
of changing the capacity of services (i.e. adding or removing carriages from
the trains), and the director of commercial relations is responsible for
entering and removing new bus routes and changing the commercial terms of the
collaboration with other companies (e.g. the service charge that mobile phone
operators or card companies are paid for ticket purchases).
Submission
Guidelines:
Note: Failure to comply with the submission guidelines will lead to a reduction of marks from your submission.