Assessing the public bus transport satisfaction

Abstract

People in communities all around the world use public transit to go about and access jobs, community resources, medical care, and recreational possibilities. It benefits both strata of the people who choose to ride through public mode of transport over private vehicles and also who have no other choice but to travel through public mode of transport. Through transit-oriented development, a city may improve commercial possibilities, prevent sprawl, and foster a sense of community by incorporating public transportation alternatives and concerns into larger economic and land-use planning. PT services provides both direct benefit to the users and also by providing indirect benefits to the environment by helping in automotive trips thereby reducing pollution and congestion in cities or create more compact environments. Patron satisfaction is scrutinized as one of the most important elements to measure the success of the services provided by any industry and a crucial determinant of customer retention. Different criteria have been identified in studies across the world to understand the public transport satisfaction like, service frequency, safety, pricing, punctuality, and reliability. But one factor that was hitherto unknown and not discussed in the studies was a situation of a pandemic. With the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic which tends to stick around for an extended time period, the retention of customers has become a great challenge for the public transport agencies. Due to this there has been a significant loss of ridership and public transport agencies are struggling to recover from the crisis. There is dire need to understand the passengers’ perception of safety and satisfaction towards the public transport services after suffering through this contagious virus outbreak. The present study aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the perception of travellers and identify intervention areas and new policies in view of improving the urban bus services. Travelers demographic data, usage of public bus transport and their perception on 16 selected attributes of bus services was gathered to analyze the scenario. Case area of New Delhi was selected based on the Google Community Mobility Reports which indicated the sharpest decrease in the percentage change in mobility to transit stations in the New Delhi district. The desired data was then collected from the travellers on the four cluster routes selected based on frequency and number of buses passing through New Delhi district. The data collected using attributes was analyzed through ImportanceSatisfaction Analysis (ISA) with fuzzy-C means clustering and using market management scheme and Kano’s three factor model. The analysis provided with specific improvement areas for urban bus services. The demographic data and usage of public bus transport data was used to track the change in usage across different demographic cohorts. Results indicate seven improvement areas for cluster bus services in New Delhi which are in-vehicle travel time, security, cleanliness, bus stop facilities, boarding and alighting safety, on-board information, and way side information. The higher priority to information related attributes of cluster bus service clearly shows the need for improvement in such attributes for the safe planning of trips during the pandemic. It was also observed that the change in usage of PBT was distinct among different demographic groups. Lastly, policy based planning measures and strategies have been proposed to improve the services of bus transport for better travel and experience.