🚔 A Police Database Web Application built with PHP & MySQL — featuring responsive forms, robust input validation, and role-based access control.
This project is a Police Database Management Web Application built with PHP and MySQL.
- It was developed in 2020 as the final coursework project for the Databases, Interfaces and Software Design Principles (DIS) module at the University of Nottingham.
- Purpose: Demonstrate ability to design and implement a relational database-backed web application with full CRUD and role-based access.
The visual design was intentionally kept minimal. The focus was on the underlying logic rather than styling, because the main goal was to:
- Provide responsive workflows: pages react immediately to user input, revealing different sub-sections depending on context (e.g. when adding an incident, whether a person or vehicle already exists or needs to be created). This was prioritised over visual polish.
- Ensure robust database integration: all entities are tightly linked with relational constraints.
- Minimise input errors: mandatory fields, uniqueness checks, prevention of inconsistent records.
- Deliver advanced search and filtering: multi-criteria queries to showcase indexing and optimisation.
- Apply role-based access control: menus and actions differ for admins and standard users.
The page may take a few attempts to load due to temporary server sleep mode.
(See Technical Manual for more details)
The system allows police officers to record and retrieve information on:
- People involved in traffic incidents
- Vehicles and ownership records
- Incidents and reports
- Offences and applicable penalties
- Fines imposed
It also includes full account management with different permissions depending on user role (admin vs standard user).
- Login & Session Management: Username/password-based login.
- People Module: Search, insert, edit, delete personal records.
- Vehicle Module: Manage vehicles with ownership links to people (existing, new, or unknown owners).
- Incident/Report Module: Record new incidents, edit or delete, and link to people/vehicles/offences.
- Offence Module: Search and manage offence types and penalty limits.
- Fines Module: Admins can assign fines to incidents.
- Account Management: Admins can create, delete, and manage user accounts.
- Admin users:
- Full access including managing accounts, offences, and fines.
- Can create or delete non-admin accounts.
- Standard users:
- Limited access to record, search, and update incidents, people, and vehicles.
👉 Initial demo credentials are provided in accounts.txt (admin and non-admin accounts).
- Database: MySQL with 7 tables
- People, Vehicle, Ownership, Offence, Incident, Fines, Users
- Relationships enforced with foreign keys (cascade on update/delete)
- Frontend/Backend: PHP (procedural style) with jQuery 3.5.1 and FontAwesome icons
- Architecture: Each functional folder (people, vehicle, report, offence, fines, account) contains search/insert/edit/delete scripts
- Security: Sessions for authentication, basic validation on inputs, simple access control by role
👉 While the UI reflects the coursework period, the real strength lies in relational schema design, input validation, and user access management.
- Clone repository and set up in a PHP-supported web server (Apache recommended).
- Import
sql/queries.txtinto MySQL to create schema and seed initial records. - Configure
dbcon.phpwith environment variables:DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS, DB_NAME, DB_PORT - Start server and navigate to
http://localhost/login.php.
- Application deployed at up.railway.app using PHP + MySQL services.
- Database credentials are injected as environment variables (
MYSQLHOST,MYSQLUSER, etc.).
- User Manual: Detailed usage guide with screenshots of all modules.
- Technical Manual: System architecture, database schema, file organisation, and workflows.