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The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the assessment of service quality of bus fleet services based on the service quality influencing factors. The paper also tries to evolve a quantitative measure for fleet service quality in the form of a fleet service quality index.

A graph theoretical approach is employed in this paper for bus fleet service quality assessment. Modelling of fleet service quality factors and their interrelations with due attention towards their structure is achieved through graph theory. A directed graph (digraph) of the service quality is developed, where its nodes represent factors influencing the quality while its edges show the degree of interrelationships. A matrix, which is equivalent to the digraph, is established that will generate a service quality function that will result in the development of a fleet service quality index (FSQI).

Attaining customer satisfaction through assurance of quality is the cornerstone of the existence and survival of any business organization, and bus fleet services are no exception to this. Several influential factors are there for the bus fleet service quality. This research paper has identified factors such as fleet management practices, operational characteristics, safety and reliability features, travel comfort, bus maintenance and environmental concerns that affect fleet service quality. Every factor is composed of distinct sub-factors. Furthermore, these factors are linked with one another. A higher value of the fleet service quality index indicates the adequate performance of the bus fleet service organization.

The methodology is useful for not only evaluating but also for comparison of service quality of different fleet agencies or organizations. The perceptions would be useful to the fleet service managers to create procedures and arrangements for improving the service quality.

The paper identifies various service quality factors of the bus fleet and an evaluation scheme for those factors has been developed. Based on these, a framework had been developed for the assessment of the service quality of different fleet service providers.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate and compare the service quality of the city bus service measured by two different approaches which are subjective service quality dimensions and objective service quality dimensions.

The objective service quality dimensions have been estimated based on the benchmarking technique provided by the Ministry of Urban Development, India. For the analysis of subjective service quality dimensions, a questionnaire survey has been conducted to measure the users’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction about the service. The questionnaire consists of users’ socioeconomic characteristics and 23 questions related to city bus service quality dimensions. Questionnaire data have been analyzed by factor analysis, regression analysis and path analysis to find out the indicators representing subjective service quality dimensions. Finally, the overall service quality of the bus service has been determined based on both the measures.

The study indicates that the overall service quality of the bus service is different for subjective and objective analyses. While the objective measures show that the service quality is very good, the subjective measures indicate that the service is not doing well.

The analysis of the subjective dimensions is complicated. Analysis of the subjective dimensions needed more expertise and resources than the objective analysis.

In this study, the estimated service quality of the bus service is more reliable than the other methods as it comprises of both operators’ perspective and passengers’ expectations from the service.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the voice of the customer (VOC) of public transport (PT) users and non-users and to identify the role VOC plays in PT service quality analysis and improvement practices.

This research is based on quantitative and qualitative data collection. Quantitative data were collected through two questionnaires; the first is based on ranking data: 192 responses and the second on the Kano model: 46 responses. The qualitative data was obtained through 10 semi-structured interviews with senior management from seven bus companies in the UK.

Findings indicate that VOC differs between PT users and non-users and compared with the perspectives of PT Providers. The research also revealed that VOC plays a crucial role in PT service quality improvement (QI).

The findings can be used by PT service providers to better understand the VOC of PT users and non-users, which will assist in strategic and QI decision-making. Furthermore, an in-depth study of VOC in PT is provided, which progresses the academic field on this topic and advances research in this area.

This research brings new insight into the most important quality attributes for PT users and non-users. Moreover, the paper fundamentally contributes to the literature, which until now had severely limited input pertaining to the role of VOC in PT and little knowledge of service QI tools and practices in this sector.

To explore people’s attitudes towards bus service quality and bus use.

The study is a natural experiment that uses primary data collected from questionnaires, which were conducted to Maltese residents. The information was collected two months before the bus service reform and one year afterwards.

Results cast doubt on whether current policy measures regarding bus service quality are adequate to contribute to a modal shift from car to bus use.

Provides insight on whether current policy measures are sufficient in order to obtain an increase in bus patronage.

The case study of the Malta bus service reform provides an opportunity to study people’s attitudes in a quasi-experimental situation. Additionally, the research sheds light on the possible impact that bus service reforms have on people’s attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method to benchmark the service quality of any public facility based on users’ perception, by taking the case of “bus design”. While some researchers have defined level of service (LOS) for highways, transit system and pedestrian facility to measure their service quality, limited attempt has been made to measure users’ perception of service quality for other public facilities which cannot be described by quantitative service levels.

In this research, an average weighted scoring technique has been integrated with the method of successive interval scaling to develop a five graded LOS scale that benchmarks users’ perception of service quality for “bus design”. The method has been exemplified by taking five types of buses currently operating in Kolkata that represent five types of “bus design”. This method can be applied for other public facilities.

By applying the method an LOS scale from LOS A to LOS E was developed for “bus design” in Kolkata that represent users’ perception from “very good” to “very poor”. “Bus design” has been described by a list of attributes identified in this research. “Degree of criticality” of different design attributes based on users’ requirements was used to identify the key attributes for improvement which was also found to vary for different bus user groups in Kolkata.

This research is the first ever attempt to benchmark service quality of a qualitative facility like “bus design” based on users’ perception instead of expert opinion as used by previous researchers.

The Algerian transport sector has undergone profound changes in recent decades with its privatization. Transport sector liberalization has achieved its primary objectives aimed at increasing public transport supply, but it has been accompanied by travel conditions deterioration because of public regulation insufficiency. For this, the Algerian State has put regulatory and institutional mechanisms to improve urban transport service quality. These mechanisms directly impose on operators and managers of transport means reception stations to meet the expectations of road users. The purpose of this study is to draw a portrait of the service quality of the Algerian urban transport. For this, a fieldwork was carried out in Batna city to know the degree of satisfaction of urban transport users toward the service offered.

In this work, the authors used questionnaires as a means of data collection. The study sample is composed of 102 users of the line. The questionnaire deals with personal data (age, sex, level of education, family and professional data), data on the nature of travel between the city of Batna and Tazoult (reasons for travel, travel time and the number of trips undertaken) and measure of user satisfaction on the Tazoult–Batna line according to the criteria of service offer, accessibility, information, duration, attention to the customer, comfort, security and environmental impact. In this work, participatory observation was also used to give a better understanding on how the urban network operates in the city. To this end, an observation grid with key questions has been prepared. It is concentrated on three axes: the actual organization of private operators providing urban bus transport, the state of buses, stations and stopping points and the practice of control by the services concerned. For this, trips were made on all urban lines during the study period. Discussions were conducted with some private operators to find out their positions and their roles in the operation of urban bus transport.

The results of this work show that satisfaction levels were average for transport supply, accessibility, duration, attention paid to customer, comfort and safety; however, they were low concerning information and environmental impact. The present work has made it possible to highlight the impacts of urban transport disorganization on the offered service. In addition, taking into account the expectations of users in terms of service quality should have positive impacts for the users themselves, for private and public operators and for urban transport managers.

This work presents a state of knowledge on the service quality in an urban environment and delivers information on the situation in Algeria without pretending to be exhaustive. However, the contribution of this study is not limited to the evaluation of the various criteria themselves, which are found in whole or in part in many studies devoted to this kind of evaluations. The real contribution of this work lies in highlighting the impacts of urban transport disorganization on the offered services quality. This disorganization is essentially characterized by a weakness or absence of an institutional framework and the multiplication of actors at different levels of intervention, which creates overlapping responsibilities or organizational gaps.

This study analyses the factors that can influence the quality of service provided by the bus rapid transit (BRT) system in the state of Pernambuco. It is incipient, considering that the system was implemented in this state in 2014 to the World cup. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors considered important for the services provided by this system and their impact on perceived quality.

The authors analyzed the data using exploratory factorial analysis, and linear and quantile regression techniques. Regarding the classification, this research is applied, exploratory, descriptive and in the form of a case study describing the situation experienced by the users of BRT in Pernambuco.

The results showed that it was possible to identify five factors that impact the level of satisfaction of the offered services: fluency in the provision of the service; staff training; physical conditions in the provision of the service; convenience/accessibility; and integration between transport lines.

With initial identification, factors 1, 3, 4 and 5 have been found to have an impact on overall service quality in a positive and statistically significant way. Factors 3 and 4 have a different impact with high- and low-quality standard perceived by users, and these should be the guiding elements by companies in establishing actions to improve the services offered.

Purpose — New methods of measuring user satisfaction in transport services have been proposed and applied in the literature. In this paper, we compare three alternative measures for estimating user satisfaction: the numerical rating, the ordinal rating and the choice.

Approach — We analysed these measures considering their differences and limitations and the models that use these measures as dependent variables. We developed and applied a methodology to build these models. It comprises a preliminary qualitative analysis and a quantitative survey to identify the most relevant attributes of the satisfaction function, and a stated preference survey to obtain information of the alternative satisfaction measures for modelling purpose.

Findings — The ordinal rating may be a better user response to estimate satisfaction than score and choice based on its characteristics. The results obtained in the application reinforced this approach.

Research limitations — It is assumed that choice, score and ordinal valuation depend upon a latent stochastic satisfaction function of the same attributes. Further research is needed to analyse this assumption and how these responses vary according to the context for decision and exogenous factors, including the response scale of ratings.

Practical implications — Gathering alternative satisfaction responses simultaneously from users allowed for the consistency analysis and filtering of data, which greatly benefited the model estimation process.

Originality/value — The paper provides a methodology to estimate user satisfaction models in transit services, which can be applied in other transport services. The conceptual analysis and the application suggest that ordinal ratings are key user responses to uncover the underlying satisfaction function.