An sms-based systems for remote verification of motor vehicle registration status

The absence of a possibility for timely retrieval of motor vehicle registration details when needed on site impedes the normal operations of day to day activities of the Tanzanian Traffic Police Department that deals with, among other things, verification of motor vehicles registration status during road patrol. The verification procedures in place are somehow difficult to be implemented since they consume money and time, however, they do not motivates the traffic polices to perform their duties effectively and efficiently. Along this dissertation. I have proposed and developed the two-way interactive text messaging prototype system that will help the traffic police department in having a capacity to timely and flexibly retrieve motor vehicle registration details from a remote Motor Vehicle Registration (MVR) database while on site using a mobile handset. The proposed system makes use of Short Message Service (SMS) technology platform found in mobile telecommunication operators. In attaining the system development, the findings of the study was specifically based on five steps of software development in which one is required to go through. These are; system requirements elicitation, system analysis, system design, system implementation, and system testing. A prototype system called Remote Vehicle Registration Verifier (RVRV) has been developed and tested. According to the tested results, the prototype system meets the defined objective. System users were allowed to send requests towards the system using SMS and the system was able to responds back the requested information of a registered motor vehicle from MVR database through their mobile handsets. Nothing is perfect like an angel; a prototype system developed like other systems has some limitations caused by the technology used. These are: The SMS technology does not guarantee set transmission times or guaranteed delivery of the message; therefore some messages may be delayed, blocked or lost.