Determinants of Customer Satisfaction on Service Quality of State Road Transportation Sector of Eastern India

1. Determinants of Customer Satisfaction on Service Quality of State Road Transportation
Sector of Eastern India
Mainak Das1 (mainakdas.iem.wbut@gmail.com), M.Tech Student , Industrial Engineering & Management
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal
Mainak Ghosh2 (mainak.ghoshiem@gmail.com), Research Scholar , Industrial Engineering & Management
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal
Sourav Das3 (sou.das123@gmail.com), Adjunct Associate Professor, Industrial Engineering & Management
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal
Bivash Mallick4 (bivash.mallick@wbut.ac.in), Assistant Professor , Industrial Engineering & Management
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal
Presented by: Mr. Mainak Das

2. Introduction
• Service Quality:
 Meeting customers’ expectations.
 Customer judge quality by comparing their expectations with their perception of what they receive (service
experience)
 It is a customer-oriented phenomenon;
 It is defined, judged & deduced by customers based on their experience, expertise, service process, environment etc.
 Service quality is a comparison of perceived expectations (E) of a service perceived performance (P), giving rise to
equation SQ=P-E
• Importance of Service Quality:
 To meet the quality expectation of the commuters. & to improve user satisfaction and patronage for public transport
service.
• Formation of Customer Satisfaction:
 Past experience, Word of Mouth, Advertising etc.

3. Dimensions of Service Quality
1. Reliability
• Dependability
• Accuracy
 Provide Service at promised time dependably
and accurately
 Perform Service Right the first time
2. Responsiveness
• Promptness
• Helpfulness
 Willingness to help customer properly
 Readiness to respond to customer’s waiting
3. Assurance
• Credibility
• Security
 Ability to convey Trust and confidence
 Give a feeling that customers best interest
is in your heart
 Being polite and showing respect for
customer
4. Empathy
• Good Communication
• Customer Understanding
• Personalized Attention
 Ability to be approachable , caring ,
understanding and relating with customer needs
5.Tangible
• Physical Evidence
 Appearance of physical facilities , equipment and
communication material

4. Measuring Service Quality

5. • ‘Customers’ perceptions towards the effectiveness of public transportation:
• ‘Customers’ satisfaction determination:
• Importance of performance measurement and effectiveness of public transport:
i. Quality of service evaluated by Perceptions & Expectations by customer
ii. Customer oriented and meet the customers’ need and desires
iii. Customer is the ultimate judge of quality services
i. Two key factors: Accessibility and reliability for evaluate the effectiveness of the service.
ii. Physical factor like bus stops and bus terminals is not the priority
iii. Factors that influence the effectiveness of public transport:
a) Physical Condition b) Convenience c) Comfort d) Safety of the bus
Six indicators to measure the effectiveness of a public transportation system:
i) financial control ii) keeping the integrity of the system iii) identifying changes needed for each service
iv) maintaining and improving service quality v) controlling sub contractors

6. Measurement of Service Quality
• Variety of Approaches
 Various national and international indexes
 Service Quality Indexes (SQI) - based on random utility theory and discrete choice models,
 Customer Satisfaction Indexes (CSI) measure service quality based on user judgements
 SERVQUAL methodology:
 used extensively by researchers
 most widely used approach across various industries to compare customers’ perceived service quality expectations
with their perceptions of actual service experience
 applied to numerous industries, including banking, retailing, hospitality and tourism, hospitals, restaurants,
education, local government and transport

7. SERVQUAL in Public Transport
Public transport services - difficult to determine service quality, esp. because of diversity of 'customers‘
Reinforces need for public sector to ensure that they provide quality services that match customer expectations as closely
as possible
 If not met - customers likely to resort to the alternative of using own cars
Policy is to create a transport system that is public transport rather than car centric
 Crucial that consumer needs and expectations are understood
 Therefore becomes possible to provide public transport services that consumers perceive to be viable alternatives to
the private car
Adaptation of SERVQUAL Instrument
 Preferable to adapt the SERVQUAL instrument to include more suitable dimensions that address specific
service quality concerns of the users.

8. LITERATURE REVIEW
Sl.
No.
Author and Year Study Dimensions
1 Silcock,1981 Public Transport Industry Accessibility, Reliability, Comfort , Convenience and Safety
2 Hanna and Drea,1998 Rail passenger service quality
(Amtrak in us)
Comfort, Timing, Cost, Location, in transit productivity
3 Lel L,Mac L,2005 Transport service sector(South
China)
RATER+ loyalty
4 Too L Earl G,2009 Public transport(Australia) SERVQUAL with the following factors -tangibles,
responsiveness, reliability and assurance.
5 Rita S, Ganesan V,2010 Public transport (India-
Chennai)
A combination of SERVQUAL and Kano model. 6 factors were
Basic services, Appreciative services, Reliability, Assured
services, Additional services and Technological advancements.
6 Randheer K, Motawa A,
Vijay J,2011
Public transport India
(first study in India)
RATER+ culture (excluded Tangibles)
7 Sezhian M, Muralidharan C,
Nambirajan T, Deshmukh
SG(2011)
Public sector bus transport
company, India(SRTU-Tamil
Nadu)
customer expectations and company responsibilities

9. Objective
1. To identify the determinants of customer satisfaction on service quality.
2. To identify most dominant factor of customer satisfaction on service quality.
3. To find out the inter relationship of the identified determinately customer satisfaction.
4. To find out the scope of improvement of service quality.

10. Methodology
 Development of a questionnaire based on modified SERVQUAL approach with five point Likert scale
 25 questions, distributed between the five dimensions i.e. Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy, Tangible
 Structured interviewer-administered questionnaires
 Demographics
 Perceptions
 Expectations
 Factor analysis with SPSS software
 Comfort, Safety, Accessibility is the main factor
 Pearson Correlation Test

11. Respondent Profile
• The data for this study is collected from the Waiting commuters.
• Main bus stops were considered for the survey in various section of Kolkata, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.
• 110,105,125 and 70 from Orissa , Jharkhand, Kolkata, Bihar commuters were surveyed respectively.
• Respondents profiles vary across all age groups from both the genders.
• 58% of the respondents fall in the income group of below 3 lakhs yearly income, 23% under 3-5 lakhs, 19% under
above 5 lakhs.

12. Factors Identified for Survey
 Ergonomic factors
 Physical facilities
 Pricing
 Security
 Competence
 Travelling time
 Level of comfort
 Service hours
 Performance of desired service
 Reliability of services
Based on the above factors a questionnaire consisting of 25 questions/ statements were prepared.

13. Findings : West Bengal
Determinants of Customer Satisfaction:
A. Availability of bus schedule information
B. Feeling safe and comfortable in the vehicle
C. Punctuality to bus schedules
D. Availability of weekly/season tickets
Most dominant factor:
 Availability of bus schedule information
Interrelationship with other factors:
 With B, Pearson’s r = 0.499**, sig: 0.002
 With C, Pearson’s r = 0.279, sig: 0.125
 With D, Pearson’s r = 0.310*, sig: 0.039

14. Findings : Bihar
Determinants of Customer Satisfaction:
 Punctuality to bus schedules
 Feeling safe in vehicle , in terms of there being low probabilities of accidents
 Availability of weekly/season tickets
 Overall condition and neatness of buses and related infrastructure
Most dominant factor:
 Punctuality to bus schedules
Interrelationship with other factors:
 With B, Pearson’s r = 0.193, sig: 0.193
 With C, Pearson’s r = 0.429**, sig: 0.008
 With D, Pearson’s r = 0.339*, sig: 0.030

15. Findings: Jharkhand
Determinants of Customer Satisfaction:
A. Overall condition and neatness of buses and related infrastructure
B. Punctuality to bus schedules
C. Insufficient notification of the availability of services
D. Feeling safe in vehicle , in terms of there being low probabilities of accidents
Most dominant factor:
 Overall condition and neatness of buses and related infrastructure
Interrelationship with other factors:
 With B, Pearson’s r = 0.302*, sig: 0.041
 With C, Pearson’s r = 0.435**, sig: 0.006
 With D, Pearson’s r = 0.317*, sig: 0.036

16. Findings: Orissa
Determinants of Customer Satisfaction:
A. feeling safe in the vehicle, in terms of there being low probabilities of accidents
B. Aaffordability of the service, specifically the cost and price increases
C. Availability of weekly/season tickets
D. Bus breakdown
Most dominant factor:
 feeling safe in the vehicle, in terms of there being low probabilities of accidents
Interrelationship with other factors:
 With B, Pearson’s r = 0.310*, sig: 0.039
 With C, Pearson’s r = 0.527**, sig: 0.001
 With D, Pearson’s r = 0.319*, sig: 0.039

17. Conclusion
In this research, we present a hybrid approach based on SERVQUAL and pearson correlation test for evaluating service
quality of the state road transportation services in Eastern India as well as identify the major bottlenecks of the service
provision from customer perspective. The research results suggests that the most significant expectations-perceptions
gap lies within the tangible dimensions. Some commuters states that GPS system should introduce in all bus, showing
the exact location of the bus online. Making this information available to passengers on the bus stop could also improve
the perceived service quality. Another improvement suggest by the company’s representatives, is introduction of travel
passes and an electronic ticketing system, which could eliminate the need for conductor, hence reduce the costs.
However, all of these proposals remain unheard by the public bodies.
The SERVQUAL model is a sufficient tool to measure service quality from customers’ perspective,
although one cannot draw a complete picture on its basis.
Future research
 Extend the current study to wider geographical coverage, enabling generalisation to the population

18. THANK YOU
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal
Formerly, West Bengal University of Technology
www.makautwb.ac.in