Intelligent Reservation System for Restaurants

Abstract

Many restaurants prefer not to take traditional reservations with a specific time, as in such case tables are required to wait for the coming guests in advance (before the agreed time) which will increase their idle time and result in fewer covers. However this preference implies that guests have to wait for tables instead by queuing physically or in a waiting list. Precious time of customers will be wasted for arriving early and staying in the queue until being served; their patience will be lost for keep standing in exhausting hunger. There are applications on the market that allow customers to make instant reservations for restaurants; that is, getting into their waiting list remotely. However the restaurants adopting such applications are limited to those located inside some shopping malls. More importantly, their users are not hinted at when their tables are ready, leading them to arrive either too early and are still required to wait outside, or too late and miss their turns. As a result, an intelligent reservation system for restaurants is developed in this project, allowing customers to join the waiting list of any available restaurants simply with their mobile devices. In addition, an estimated waiting duration and their latest position in the queue will be provided for them. For a more accurate estimation, machine learning with the appropriately selected algorithm will be employed in the system. Past data generated from the waiting list of each restaurant will be made use of and applied for building a model for the corresponding restaurants, which will then help to analyze the new instant reservations and perform prediction on their durations. This feature will hopefully help the customers to save their time and effort from queuing and waiting, thus to enjoy better dining experience.