Service quality attributes in urban bus services: the experience of Belem-Para/Brazil

The city of Belem, in Brazil's northern region, is known as the gateway of the Amazon and is also capital of the Para state and part of a metropolitan region.In the last 10 years, deep changes in the metropolitan socioeconomic and land use structures have led to a decrease in bus ridership.This is due to congestion jams in bus corridors and continuous quality deterioration of bus services.A survey was done to determine and evaluate which service attributes influence users' opinions that allow them to have a negative image of bus transport.Data were obtained through a home survey (500 households) applied to bus users in order to identify their socioeconomic status, trip patterns, service evaluation and both favourable and unfavourable opinions towards bus services.A detailed analysis of the results permits the identification of the most important existing problems and shortcomings and gives subsidy to a comprehensive diagnosis of the whole bus transport system.