Assessment of Bus Service-Quality using Passengers’ Perceptions

Abstract

Public transport business has been facing quite a few serious challenges. Indeed, public transport operators need to be more heedful of the changing mobility needs and passengers’ perceptions regarding the delivery of bus transport services in order to keep it profitable.  With the prevailing conditions of city buses, as they are, bus transport may not suit the needs of most passengers, especially car users. The aforementioned scenario provided the rationale to conduct this study in 5order to assess the satisfaction of users regarding bus services in three regions of Johor Bahru, Malaysia. A total of 225 samples was evaluated to form the level of satisfaction based on 7 main attributes of bus service-quality as reported by 3 income groups. The perception towards the bus service-quality were obtained and corresponding level-of-satisfaction were analysed. The variability between different user groups’ relative level-of-satisfaction with respect to bus quality attributes was examined using SPSS statistical software. The disputes and agreements between passengers were critically examined to obtain a final rating of service quality attributes. The results revealed that users are very disappointed with the punctuality of  bus service and inability of the operators to provide a tentative timetable for the operation schedules. Passengers of public transport were satisfied with the number of days of operation and the available bus facilities. The study also indicated that the reliability provided by the operators is quite different from what passengers expect