Testing of a Smart Transportation Application for Electronic Toll Collection

Summary

A provider of intelligent transportation systems was building a fully automated electronic toll collection system for a state road organization and needed multilingual testers to perform full-lifecycle localization testing. INNERLUXES augmented the provider's QA team with two testers who handled functional, regression, and localization testing — plus on-field testing and training of the local team — contributing to a successful launch and reduced implementation costs.

About the Client

The Client is a provider of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) that use information and communication technologies to support and optimize road transportation — including infrastructure, vehicles, users, and industry — to improve traffic flow, increase road safety, protect the environment, and enhance public security.

The Challenge

A state organization operating as a road building and maintenance company commissioned the Client to develop a system for fully automated electronic collection and processing of vehicle tolling data — conducting toll collection with no interference to traffic flow. Based on microwave DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communication) technology, the system lets road users pay tolls without stopping at toll plazas, with tolls calculated automatically through direct communication between the on-board unit (OBU) in the vehicle and the toll gantries.

To ensure sustainable operation, the Client developed:

• Two CRM applications in C# (back end) and Delphi (front end) for operators to run the toll collection system.
• Four applications (C# and Delphi) largely for managerial statistics.
• A website in PHP for drivers to manage their personal accounts.

The Client needed to augment its testing team with local specialists proficient in several languages and able to perform full-lifecycle localization testing of the software, and brought in two testers from INNERLUXES.

The Solution

INNERLUXES's testers stayed with the team for two months before and eight months after the system launch. In close cooperation with the Client's business analyst and developers, they performed:

• Local testing team coordination, planning, and task distribution.
• Checklist preparation and test design.
• Test plan and test case writing.
• Functional, regression, and localization testing of system modules.
• Test results reporting.
• Bug review, reporting, and verification.
• Product quality evaluation.

The team put considerable effort into on-field testing alongside the local system operators, which required language knowledge none of the Client's specialists had, significantly speeding up the testing process. Since the local unit had no dedicated testers, INNERLUXES provided extensive training so the local team could take over after launch — letting the Client avoid the expense of relocating QA specialists. All processes followed Agile with 3–4 week sprints, organized with minimum idle time for the testing team.

The Results

• The project was delivered on time, and INNERLUXES's testers played a key role in localizing the system.
• The work helped the Client considerably reduce implementation costs, and the launch was regarded as the most successful among those performed by the Client.
• The toll roads covered by the system total around 1,200 km.

Technologies and Tools

Testing software: TestTrack Pro, SoapUI.

Framework: Microsoft .NET.

Database management system: Microsoft SQL Server.

VPN software: Cisco VPN Client.