Evaluating the Effect of ‘Quality’ on Bus Users’ Satisfaction

Through a detailed investigation of current bus operations and service quality factors, this paper presents an important aspect of bus service improvement. This research will address two main questions: First, what effect does bus service improvement have on the passengers’ satisfaction? Second, what are the most important factors to the bus users that can achieve their satisfaction? This research uses a qualitative approach to assess passengers’ views of quality of bus service improvement. The objective is to assess the importance of quality attributes such as reliability, punctuality, cleanliness, etc. and how satisfied passengers are with these attributes. There is a considerable amount of work in the public transport industry on defining passenger requirements. To fill the gap, this research looks at the performance of bus service from the passengers’ perspective in an attempt to quantify their response to significant changes in service quality. This paper draws on recent experience in Great Britain to investigate the impact of Quality Bus Partnerships where factors to improve bus service are being brought forward. This research includes responses from users of two types of service with distinct quality differences, from which conclusions can be drawn.