Philippine E-Journals

Design of an E-Card Payment System for Marine Transportation

Jennifer B. Enriquez

Discipline: Transportation

 

Abstract:

Among the most frequently mentioned causes of sea accidents are overloading of the ship, aging facilities, badly-trained crew members, and poor compliance by the vessels with safety precautions and measures. With these causes, a system has been designed and developed to enhance the usual process in paying ship fare and checking passengers’ tickets upon boarding. In this system, the passenger can locate his assigned deck easily, which floor plan of the designated deck will be viewed automatically upon inserting the electronic card in lieu of paper tickets. This kind of process will result to easy monitoring of number of passengers based on its total capacity.

In designing and developing the system, a barcode scanner was used in reading a passenger’s card to access his account, which resulted to displaying his assigned deck on the screen. The card serves as a gate pass to board the ship. If it is accepted a lever arm connected to a dc motor triggered by a relay comprises the improvised turnstile that will move upward that means the passenger can now board the ship. Database was developed using MS Access and manages by a program created in visual basic.

A survey was conducted prior to the development of the system. The purpose of the survey was to know target users’ perceptions on the existing process of ship boarding that will strengthen the problem of the study. Based on the data gathered, higher percentage of the respondents prefer to have a new process in ship boarding.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system, another survey was conducted at Pier 12, Sulpicio Lines Inc. Moriones, Tondo, Manila. Accuracy, reliability and user-friendliness were the criteria of the evaluation. Based on the result of the survey, accuracy got a rating of 4.89, reliability 4.88 and user-friendliness 4.85, which means excellent.

The system is beneficial to the ship passengers, ship operators and ship crew members. It eliminates paper tickets and difficulty of passengers looking for their assigned deck. Also, crew members will focus in assisting the passengers upon boarding. Through these features, overloading, which is one of the most frequent causes of sea accidents can be prevented.