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A Car Breakdown Service Station Locator System

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 International Journal of Applied Engineering Research ISSN 0973-4562 Volume 11, Number 22 (2016) pp. 11037-11040
© Research India Publications. http://www.ripublication.com

A Car Breakdown Service Station Locator System

Khoo Jin Sheng

School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), 11800, Penang, Malaysia.

Ahmad Suhaimi Baharudin

School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), 11800, Penang, Malaysia.

Kamal Karkonasasi
(corresponding author) School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), 11800, Penang, Malaysia.

Abstract
A lot of people are facing difficulties getting help when their
car breaks down on the road. Many of them do not have any Car
Repair Service Providers’ contact number and could not get
help as the Car Repair Service Providers might be far away from
their locations. These problems are the motivations for the
development of this project to help those who are in need when
their car breaks down along the roads. This project will start
with the analysis of the car breakdown incidents on the road. It
expects that through some research, the statistics of car
breakdowns can be obtained to see if this project is helpful to
those in need. The next step would be an analysis and
comparison of those existing Car Breakdown Service portals or
applications to identify the flaws. Development of a Car
Breakdown Service Station Locator System will be carried out
after planning and analysis. Internal testing and user testing of
the application will be carried out before the system is being
deployed. As part of the expected results, the proposed system
connects Car Repair Service Providers (CRSP) and the Public
through this system. If the car owner's transportation breaks
down on any highway or federal road in any part of Malaysia,
the owner could enter information with regards to the place of
breakdown in the system using mobile phone, tablets. The
system will automatically search for any CRSP nearest to the
reported incident spot. The users are able to contact the CRSP
to service the vehicle. This project aims to develop a Car
Breakdown Service Station Locator System. The proposed
system connects Car Repair Service Providers (CRSP) and the
Public through this system.
Keyword: Car Repair Service Providers, Car Breakdown, Car
Breakdown Service Station Locator System
INTRODUCTION
When it comes to car breakdown, it could mean more than just
the car’s technical defects as it could lead to injuries and fatalities
because getting out of the car to check for breakdowns can be
very dangerous especially on a highway as people are driving
very fast. Based on Federal Highway Administration statistics
(United States), there are approximately 4,000 fatalities and
almost 60,000 injuries from roadside crashes. In this event, it is
best to seek for the professional’s help which is the Car Repair
Service Providers (CRSP) as they are more knowledgeable and
for personal safety on the road as well. Contacting the Car Repair
Service Providers is the main concern at this point as the public
has limited information to the providers.
Problem Statement
During festive seasons, car breakdown cases increase more as
the long journeys put vehicles more at risk of breaking down. In
Federal Highways, it is easier to seek for help as there is PLUS’
Workshop on Wheels (WOW) service, developed in
collaboration with the Automobile Association of Malaysia
(AAM) which provides towing service as well. In the case of
breakdown on State Route and Route in Town, it can be difficult
to get help because if the driver is not familiar with that place.
When it comes to breakdown in rural areas, it could be worse as
the point of breakdown is far away from Car Repair Service
Providers.
Another problem is the rise of tow truck scam where a tow truck
appears at the scene out of nowhere, offering tow service. After
towing away, the vehicle, the scammer will demand a large
amount of money from the victim to get back the car. There have
been many cases where the tow truck operators themselves
engineered the accidents, through the use of oil or nails on a
targeted stretch of road. All these happen on the road as the
drivers will get panicked when cars break down and they have
no idea who to seek for help. The scammers take advantage of
this and make their service looks convenient, but it is actually a
scam.
From the above problems, it is important that further
investigations should be made to solve this problem faced by the
public. There must be a solution to this problem, not just to
decrease the tow truck scam incidents, but to help the public to
contact a trustworthy service operator to assist them in such
situations too. As a driver on the road, car breakdown can happen
at any time and it is out of the driver’s control at some point.
When a driver was caught in such situation, one definitely does
not want to be stranded on the road for too long seeking help
without any clues, especially in unfamiliar places.
Proposed Solution
At this point, the Car Breakdown Service Station Locator
System will be developed on Android platform due to the time
constraint and a lot of research need to be done to develop the
system. Development of this system on other platforms such as
IOS and windows will be considered in the future if good
feedbacks are being received from the users. The system will use
the driver’s current location to determine the nearest CRSP

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 International Journal of Applied Engineering Research ISSN 0973-4562 Volume 11, Number 22 (2016) pp. 11037-11040
© Research India Publications. http://www.ripublication.com
available and display a list of CRSP nearby for the driver to
choose. In order to perform the search of nearest CRSP, Google
Places API for mobile will be used to connect people to places
of interest with the power of location awareness on Android. As
for the cost of service, the price charged by each CRSP is
impossible to be displayed as the root cause of car breakdown
must be determined before the cost can be calculated. The scope
of this system will focus on searching the nearest CRSP for the
drivers, providing help to people who do not possess any
mechanic’s number in hand. The business deal is between the
CRSP and the driver which is out of the system’s control.
RELATED WORKS
The development of this project, a Car Breakdown Service
Station Locator System is a new project with a different idea as
compared to some of the systems available that offers car
breakdown service.
Some CRSP offers their services via the traditional way of
giving their name cards to friends around to promote their
services and communicate with customers through phone calls.
Some offer their services through web and mobile application
where the CRSP would have to handle the application by
themselves.
All these CRSP have their own way of managing their business
and there are pros and cons at the point of looking from the
public’s point of view who urgently requires the CRSP’s
services during car breakdown. For this project, the focus will be
on the user’s side as the main focus of this project is to solve the
problem faced by the public on the road. Anyhow, both the user
and CRSP’s convenience and benefit will not be neglected even
though the focus will be put on the user side. The development
of this Car Breakdown Service Station Locator System will try
to bring minimal interaction in terms of managing the
application and interaction between user interfaces to ease the
use of the mobile application during the times of frustration.
Some of the existing system of services is being listed in the next
part to make comparisons of strength and weaknesses. List of
existing system or services are in following.
A. OpenDay
OpenDay is an application on the IOS platform that provides
repair quotes from car repair service providers nearby, combined
with an easy-to-use platform to schedule and pay for service. It
allows the user to choose the type of services needed, describe
problems that the driver is facing and it can be used as regular
maintenance as well. This application will get the users
competitive, local quotes for car repair and maintenance with
price, location and rating.
B. RepairPal
RepairPal founded in 2007 by a group of automobile enthusiasts
and entrepreneurs who were frustrated by the expensive and
tedious process of fixing and maintaining their vehicles. They
created RepairPal to provide drivers with the most accurate,
unbiased, and useful car ownership information available.
RepairPal offers a stress-free, time-saving method of obtaining
all the relevant information conscientious consumers need.
C. CarBengkel
CarBengkel is an intelligent mobile application that connects car
drivers and authorized OEM workshop as well as specialized
workshops for maintenance and repair by leveraging on GPS and
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push technology. In an unforeseen event of car breaks down, the
driver can send an SOS from handphone to the nearest workshop
for rescue. Other than a car breakdown rescue, there are other
features in this app such as pickup service, drive in, quotation,
and scheduled for maintenance.
As the summary of the background study, it shows that some of
the existing applications have flaws and some service providers
are working fine with the traditional way like call-for-services
while tow truck scammers are still trying to find ways to cheat
the public. In response to all these problems, Car Breakdown
Service Station Locator System of this project aims to solve the
flaws of the existing apps and utilizing the power of Information
Technology to improve the service for those that are doing well.
At the same time, this project aims to lower the percentage of the
public getting cheated by tow truck scammers by providing the
most convenient way of searching for workshops for help, thus
reducing the chances of relying on tow truck scammers on the
road.
SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Car Breakdown Service Station Locator System is designed to
solve most of the drivers’ car breakdown problem on the road.
The proposed system connects Car Repair Service Providers
(CRSP) and the Public through this system, allowing the car
owner to contact the nearest CRSP in case the car breaks down
on any highway or federal road in any part of Malaysia by
utilizing the GPS functionality on the smartphone. The system
will automatically search for any CRSP nearest to the reported
incident spot within a certain radius. Users are free to choose the
CRSP within the list that they prefer to obtain service from. The
analysis phase of this project will start with the analysis of
similar or the existing app to compare the flaws and strength of
these systems. The second phase will be the feedback from car
drivers to identify the problems that most people are having.
Features of the new system will be determined based on the
analysis and comparison of the existing systems and
identification of the public’s problem. Development phase will
come in after that and the system requirements will be reviewed
from time to time to further enhance the development. In terms
of the time for development, the prototype of this system aims
for mid of February 2016 to be finished while the deployment of
the final phase of this system will be done in early May 2016.
This Car Breakdown Service Station Locator System is basically
an application on the Android platform that is helpful to those
who are in need when their car breaks down. This application
will allow the user to search for the nearest car repair service
providers (CRSP) using an Android smartphone to get help.
As the user of the application, new users will have to register
with the application before they can search for CRSP to seek for
help. The user will interact with the application on their
smartphone to find the nearest and available CRSP to get
assistance. Basically the system will require a minimal
interaction from the user as the aim is to provide convenience
and not to frustrate the user. Only a few taps, and a small detail
of information is needed to start the finding of CRSP whereby
the system will use the GPS sensor on the phone to detect the
nearest CRSP and then return the search result back to the user.
Figure 1 shows the waterfall methodology of the project.
 International Journal of Applied Engineering Research ISSN 0973-4562 Volume 11, Number 22 (2016) pp. 11037-11040
© Research India Publications. http://www.ripublication.com
Figure 1: Waterfall methodology
The system will search the CRSP in a fixed radius and return
results to the user. Then the user is free to select any CRSP of
their own preference which are in the list and call from the details
provided by the application.
The cost of service by the CRSP will not be displayed to the user
as the root cause of the problem has yet to be identified and the
business will solely in between the user and the CRSP. In terms
of the business model, downloading the application for the user
or the CRSP will not cost any money as this project is for the
final year project development rather than to earn money. In-app
purchase can be added in the future for further enhancement and
other purpose if needed. Figure 2 shows the main modules in
system design.
Figure 2: Modules in the system
The flow of application interface starts from the splash screen,
kind of like a welcome screen and an introduction to the user.
The splash screen consists of the name of the application, Car
Breakdown Service Station Locator System with the background
of a map to give the user a brief idea about what this application
is about. The reason for choosing such background is because it
shows the user that it is something related to maps and location.
The next one will be the registration and login page whereby
users must login or register as a new user to start using the
application. Both registration and login page requires minimum
data entry as this application does not require much information
to operate.
The user will then enter the menu page which has 3 options to
choose from, search for CRSP, About Us, and Contact Us. The
buttons use different colors for easier differentiation.
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Entering the Search option will show the user a map with nearby
CRSP within that radius. Yellow marker shows the user’s
current location and blue markers shows the CRSP around. The
top shows the logo of the application, whereas the bottom shows
the selected CRSP’s details. Tapping on the marker will show
the CRSP’s information on an info window, tapping on the info
window will bring the user to call the CRSP. Upon tapping the
CRSP’s marker, the right screen will show a navigation button
to bring the user to turn by turn navigation if the user’s car is still
moveable and users would like to go to the CRSP’s location
directly.
From the menu page, tapping on About Us will display a page
showing the information on the application and the developer.
There is a short description about the development of the
application, release date, version and the developer. Again from
the menu page, tapping on the Contact Us will direct the user to
a feedback form whereby the user can ask questions, complain,
or feedback to the developer through email.
Navigation throughout the whole application is kept in the
simplest form to ease the use for the users as many people would
be frustrated during car breakdown and no one wants to spend
time to explore complex applications during the time of
hardship. With consideration to the user’s mood and usability at
that particular moment, all buttons are designed for easy tapping
without any problem and the color of the background is dim to
create a peaceful view and to bring out the buttons without the
need to look deeper into the application.
SYSTEM EVALUATION
The purpose of carrying out unit testing is to verify that each
subunit of the application fulfills the design specification. Unit
testing is being carried out to test all the functionality of the
application in isolation to determine whether these functions
work as it should. Each function is tested individually with some
test cases to see if it meets the requirement.
Next testing is the integration testing where all functions and
subunits are integrated to be tested as a whole application.
Integration testing involves the testing on the flow of the
application with the consideration of interaction of users with the
user interface.
Last but not least is the system testing to verify that the
application as an integrated system meets the requirement
specification that was formed earlier. It also determines whether
the application is capable of solving the problems that triggered
the development of this application. This involves the testing on
the complete flow of interaction with different test cases.
The test results are acceptable as compared to the expected
result. Confirmation of password in registration works well and
will prompt the user to reenter again if the confirmation
password is not the same as the password. Validation of
username and password in Login is also workable whereby the
application will prompt the user to reenter username and
password if it does not comply to the database. Availability of
CRSP in different locations is tested fine by showing CRSP
within the search radius in different locations. Availability of
CRSP’s information is also being met when tapping on different
CRSP to show the names, address, latitude and longitude.
Information transfer to developing in, feedback form works well
by verifying the information in the feedback form and the
developer’s email. Only a minor issue in the feedback form is
the email address of the user whereby the application will use
the user’s registered email account on the smartphone to send the
 International Journal of Applied Engineering Research ISSN 0973-4562 Volume 11, Number 22 (2016) pp. 11037-11040
© Research India Publications. http://www.ripublication.com
email instead of the email address provided by the user in the
feedback form.
As compared to other existing system, this Car Breakdown
Service Station Locator System has the advantage of returning
the search result of CRSP nearby the user’s current location, with
different CRSP is forming a network of assistance that functions
anytime, anywhere. This enables the user to choose any of the
CRSP of their own preference that is returned by the application
without the constraint of only one CRSP. The usability of this
application is not limited to the CRSP’s coverage area as the user
gets to choose from other CRSP if one could not offer their
assistance. Some CRSP does offer their own application for car
breakdown service, but these applications are limited by the
CRSP’s area of coverage, meaning that the user will be deserted
on the road without any help if the user is out of the CRSP’s
coverage area. This application also has the advantage of turn by
turn navigation to direct the user to the CRSP’s location if the
user decides to drive to the CRSP for servicing a minor
breakdown.
The main disadvantage of this Car Breakdown Service Station
Locator System is that it requires internet and location service,
GPS to function. The application is not workable if the user is at
somewhere that has no internet connection or out of location
service’s area. The development of this Car Breakdown Service
Station Locator System helps the public people to get assistance
from CRSP nearby their current location. After going through
different test cases, it can be concluded that the application
performs as it was designed and serves the purpose of solving
the problems faced by the public people when experiencing a car
breakdown.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the problems faced by the drivers are not solely
car breaking down. Car breakdown will cause frustration to the
driver, the frustration will then cause the driver to make bad
decisions and being scammed by the tow truck scammers.
Another problem is getting help from workshops or mechanics.
One who does not possess any workshop’s number can only rely
on the help of a car passing by and risk being scammed. Based
on all these related problems, it is vital to come out with a
solution that can solve these problems. Revising back the
background studies, the current way of how people obtain
service from workshops might be satisfying such as the service
provided by Automobile Association of Malaysia (AAM), the
existing application such as CarBengkel might be designed to
be more helpful for those who faces car breakdown difficulties,
however the development of this project aims to improve the
way on how the public contact the CRSP and to provide
convenience for both sides. The development of this Car
Breakdown Service Station Locator System also aims to
overcome the flaws of some of the existing applications in the
market. With open source resources, the development cost of
this Car Breakdown Service Station Locator System is being
kept to a minimum and that is why it is capable of providing
assistance to the user with free of charge on the application
download. The development of this application also fits the
purpose of education studies and meets the requirement as
stated in early stages and of course providing help to people
who are in need.
As for future work, there is a lot of room for important on the
development of this application whereby it can be developed
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into a paid version to increase the radius of CRSP search result,
which is one way of earning from the business perspective.
Application for the CRSP side can also be developed in the
future to connect the CRSP and the users through the
application itself when most of the CRSP is up to the trend of
implementing smartphone usage in their business.
Both the public and the CRSP can benefit from the development
of this Car Breakdown Service Station Locator System and
reduce the scam rates of tow truck scammers who always take
advantage of the public’s difficulties.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Universiti Sains Malaysia
(USM) as this research has been supported from the Research
University Grant (RUI) [Account Number:
1001/PKOMP/811251] and from the Short Term Research
Grant [Account Number: 304/PKOMP/6312103] from the
Universiti Sains Malaysia.
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