Factors Affecting Service Quality in Public Bus Transportation in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This research was conducted to find factors affecting service quality in public bus transportation and their effect on development of public bus transport sector. Study was carried out based on three research questions, main question being “What are the factors affecting the service quality in public transportation in?”, followed by two subsidiary questions, “What are the existing transport facilities and how they can be improved through research findings?” and “What are the current facilities provided to handle customer complaints and how it can be developed?”. Main objective was to find and analyse factors affecting service quality in public bus transport sector in Western Province, and further to achieve other objectives: To find relationship of factors affecting development of transportation and effect of customer complaints towards development of public transportation, and also to find areas on which further attention must be paid. Service quality in public transport sector could be varied upon different routes, where this study identifies it as short distance (within Colombo district) and long distance routes (out of Colombo district). As data collection methods, both primary and secondary data collections were used while analysis of research consists of a descriptive analysis, chi-square analysis and multinomial logistics regression analysis. Significant factors that have been selected through chisquare analysis were used to develop logistics regression model development and thus two models were developed. Factors used to measure service quality are vehicle safety, physical design of station, physical quality of vehicle, information regarding timetable, travel time/delay, frequency of departures, ticket system, price level, performance and reliability, crew’s attitude, inquiries/complaints, appreciation of travel speed and time, connectivity, accessibility, information and environmental impact. Conclusively it could be identified that customer satisfaction towards public transportation plays a major role in identifying service quality. Thereby service quality can be improved by addressing unsatisfied or less satisfied matters effectively. Thus expected service quality by transport users could be reached, ultimately leading to eliminate unnecessary private vehicle usage on roads.