Analysis and Establishment of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) On Customer Satisfaction in Tehran
Seyed Mohammad Mahmoudi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Tehran, Qom College, Iran
Email: mahmoudi@ut.ac.ir
Fereydun Verdinejad, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Tehran
Email:Verdinejad@verdinejad.com
Gholamreza Jandaghi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Tehran, Qom College, Iran
Email: jandaghi@ut.ac.ir
Ali Mokhtari Mughari, M.Sc.
Industrial Engineer From Sharif university(Golpayegan College)
Email:alimokhtari2005@yahoo.com
Abstract
This research with aim of exploration and analysis of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in passengers satisfaction of Tehran city which has been as the huge event in public transportation.
For doing of this research after exploration of models and approaches in service quality, this point that Vahed company as public services organization serves passengers and using of quality models that emphasizing customer satisfaction; the conceptual model based on primary and sub hypothesis was designed. For gathering data, two questionnaires were used for BRT passengers and customers satisfaction. The Research hypotheses were tested by correlation test, all the hypotheses were verified. The sequences of priorities in passengers’ satisfaction were drivers’ behavior, ergonomics, bus velocity and service item. There was a significant relationship between passengers’ satisfaction and BRT quality. Also it was concluded that drivers’ behavior item with mean of 1.99, bus velocity with mean of 2.04, Ergonomics item with mean of 2.87 and, service quality of BRT with mean of 3.10 were first to fourth priority respectively.
Key words: BRT, customer Satisfaction, Servqual, TQM, Service Quality
Introduction
In one type of category, we can divide internal urban transportation to public and private transportation. The target of this research is determination relation between passengers (customer) satisfaction and establishment of bus rapid transit (BRT) in Tehran that results of this research can use for development and increscent of effectiveness of BRT lines in Tehran and the other huge cities. In the research, drivers behavior, ergonomics, speed, ITS and services item were explored by two questionnaires ( Servqual questionnaire and BRT questionnaire) and all of hypothesizes were verified by correlation test.
Tehran Vahed Company is as the largest company for public transportation to citizens’ services in Tehran. An important factor for customer satisfaction is quality of services and we used of Seroquel model for determination of gap between what we expect and what is given.(Josef and others,2003,p87)
Literature Review
Research literature gives quality and customer satisfaction and BRT elements. Customer satisfaction is a broad concept that includes perceived evaluation of product and service (Leemand Yoon 2004). Bathie and Sarkar (2002) in their paper started with the observation that both marketing and TQM had a core value in common – a customer focus. From the process approach (principle in Iso 9001:2000), there is great potential to use it in operationalizing marketing. Chien et al. (2002) stated that many companies fail to implement customer satisfaction owing to lack of experience, or not being able to keep up with the continuous implementation of customer satisfaction (requirement of the ISO 9001:2000). Singh and Singh(2009) try to develop an understanding of the change in innovation in services from technological adoption to complex complementary changes in technologies, skills and organization. They attempt to look at the managerial perspective of services innovation and the infrastructural setup needed for an optimal system. The paper by Zineldin (2005) examines the product and service quality and customer relationship factors that influence the customer selection and image of the principal banks. Zheng and Jiaqing (2007) present the actuality of South-Centre Corridor Bus Rapid Transit line of Beijing in China, and summarize and analyze the application effect from the management condition, service level, and social benefit. After the regular bus lines at Beijing South-Centre Corridor being adjusted stage by stage, the operation environment has been greatly advanced, and the volume as well as speed of vehicles has obviously improved; with the improvement of the service level, the reduction of traveling time of the passenger, the improvement of the satisfaction level, the improvement of the bus speed, the reduction of delay, the improvement of the punctuality rate, the improvement of the transit efficiency, and the increase in the investment yield, the BRT is exactly “the third mode” existing between orbit transit and regular bus transit. Pucher et al (2005) describes the public transport reforms in Seoul and assesses their impacts on safety, speed, costs, passenger levels, and overall customer satisfaction. Aworemi et al.(2008) look at the impact of socio-economic characteristics of formal and informal public transport demand in Kwara State, Nigeria and suggest that government must totally support the informal and formal public transport sectors (private transport companies) by providing well-articulated policies to improve the performance of operations and services. One necessary condition for the realization of quality and the creation of value added is quality measurement and control.
What is BRT?
Bus Rapid Transit uses a variety of innovative system designs and technologies to speed travel time, cut costs and make service more reliable.
Federal Transit Administration defines BRT:
“A rapid mode of transportation that can provide the quality of rail trains and the flexibility of buses”
The main elements of BRT are:
- Physical Components:
- Running Way
- Dedicated lanes
- Queue Jumps
- Stations: Increased passenger amenities
- Shelter
- Benches
- Way finding
- System Maps
- Real-time information
- Off board fare collection
- Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
- Reduced intersection delay (transit signal priority)
- Real-time bus arrival notifications
- Branding
- Unique identity branded to service that is carried through on all aspects of the system including vehicles and stations
- Operational Components
- Service
- Increased frequencies (minimum every 10 minutes)
- Increased spans of service (minimum 14 hrs/day) including nights and weekends
- Limited stops – only highest ridership locations
- Vehicles
- Low-floor vehicles to allow curb level boarding
- Higher capacity vehicles
- Service
- Running Way
Measurement of quality service in public sector: SERVQUAL model
The SERVQUAL approach to the measurement of service quality has attracted considerable attention since it was first introduced by Parasuraman et al. in 1985 and further developed by them in 1998 (Donnelly and Dalrymple, 1996). “The approach starts from the assumption that the level of service quality experienced by customers is critically determined by the gap between their expectations of the service and their perceptions of what they actually receive from a specific service provider” (Donnelly and Dalrymple,1996). The SERVQUAL model proposes five dimensions upon which customers evaluate service quality.
These are:
Tangibles – the appearance of the physical facilities and materials related to the service
Reliability – the ability to perform the service accurately and dependably
Responsiveness – the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service
Assurance – the competence of the system and its security, credibility and courtesy
Empathy – the ease of access, approachability and effort taken to understand customers’ requirements
Initially the SERVQUAL model (Parasuraman et al, 1985) was purported to be a generic model for all service encounters. Work done by Donnelly and Dalrymple (1996) questioned its portability and validity in the case of public services. They contended that the multidimensional nature of the stakeholders made the service delivery and evaluation more complex. If SERVQUAL is a generic instrument is it portable to the virtual service encounter that takes place between a call centre and its customers? This paper uses the SERVQUAL Model for measurement of customer satisfaction from establishment of BRT in Tehran.
Research Hypotheses
Main Hypothesis:
There is significant relationship between BRT establishment and customer satisfaction of public transportation In Tehran.
Secondary hypotheses:
There is significant relationship between variety services of BRT and customer satisfaction.
There is significant relationship between velocity of BRT and customer satisfaction
There is significant relationship between drivers behavior of BRT and customer satisfaction
There is significant relationship between ergonomics of BRT and customer satisfaction
Research Conceptual Model:
We designed conceptual model based on research target and its measurement and quality for gaining to target.
Figure1: Research conceptual model, made by authors,2010
Research Methodology
This research is applied research and survey-descriptive research. It is used from correlation method for determination relation between customer satisfaction and establishment of BRT .Because of it; we designed and distributed two questionnaires that one Servqual questionnaire is customer satisfaction measurement by Servqual model and another is for BRT passengers. For evaluation of customer satisfaction was stated 15 questions and for BRT passengers were stated 35 questions. For reliability of the research was used Cronbach Alpha and the results of variables reliability are shown in table 1.
Table 1: The result of variables research and questionnaire based on Cronbach Alpha
| alpha | variables |
| 0.878 | Services BRT |
| 0.812 | Speed BRT |
| 0.733 | Drivers Behavior |
| 0.775 | Ergonomics |
| 0.713 | Passenger of satisfaction BRT questionerie of |
| 0.765 | Customer satisfaction(Servqual) questionerie |
Also, we calculated Cronbach Alpha for all of questions of this research and resulted to 0.879 and this number is higher than 0.7, then the reliability of research is verified. For validity evaluation was used from content validity and verification of expert professors and expertise managers in Vahed Company and BRT system.
Based on research hypothesizes can state that independent variables are services quality, speed, drivers behavior, ergonomics and ITS and dependent variable is satisfaction of BRT services quality. Also, are explored and analyzed the relation among customer passenger with services quality, speed, drivers behavior, ergonomics and ITS.
Statistical population and sample
Based on the population of Tehran citizens, target population for BRT passengers in Tehran are 000/000/2 passengers and using the sample size formula 200 passengers were selected. In this research, two questionnaires were distributed, one questionnaires was designed for customer satisfaction measurement (Servqual model) and the second one was designed for BRT passengers .Time scope of the data collection was from September to December 2009.
Research findings
For normality testing of variables, the Kolmogrov – Smirnov test was used. The test results are shown in table 2.
Table2. The result of Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test
| Services BRT | BRT Speed | Drivers Behavior | Ergonomics | Customer satisfaction | |
| 0.183 | 0.320 | 0.334 | 0.054 | 0.120 | sig |
By Pearson’s correlation coefficient, the relation among BRT services, drivers’ behavior, BRT Speed , Ergonomics and ITS are verified.
Table4:Pearson’s correlation coefficient for hypothesizes
| p-value | Pearson’s correlation coefficient | variables | hypothesis |
| 0.000 | 0.487** | BRT establishment Customer satisfaction | Main hypothesis |
| 0.000 | 0.438** | Services BRT Customer satisfaction | The first Secondary hypothesis |
| 0.000 | 0.403** | BRT Speed Customer satisfaction | The second Secondary hypothesis |
| 0.013 | 0.178* | Drivers Behavior Customer satisfaction | The third Secondary hypothesis |
| 0.000 | 0.349** | Ergonomics Customer satisfaction | The forth Secondary hypothesis |
Notification: **error level of 0.01, * error level of 0.05
In table 5, it is given statistics test in Friedman test.
Table5 :Test Statistics in Friedman test
| score | Statistics |
| 196 | number |
| 150.236 | Chi-Square |
| 3 | df |
| 0.000 | Asymp. Sig. |
Because of error level (0.000) is lower than given error level(0.05), based on equality of variables priorities is rejected .Thus , the result of Friedman test shows drivers behavior item with mean of 1.99 in the first priority , the speed item with mean of 2.04 in the second priority, Ergonomics item with of 2.87 in the third priority , service item of BRT with mean of 3.10 in forth priority and ITS item of BRT with mean of 3.15 in fifth priority of customer satisfaction.
Table 6. Mean of Ranks in Friedman test
| Mean of Ranks | Variables |
| 3.10 | Services BRT |
| 2.04 | Speed BRT |
| 1.99 | Drivers Behavior |
| 2.87 | Ergonomics |
In the following table, satisfaction of questionnaires respondent sequentially presented drivers behavior ,ergonomics, BRT speed, BRT services and ITS.
Table7. Mean and Standard deviation of respondents for BRT variables
| Standard deviation | Mean | BRT Questionnaire (NO) | Variable |
| 0.9 | 4.4 | 27-29 | Drivers Behavior |
| 0.8 | 4.2 | 30-35 | Ergonomics |
| 0.8 | 3.7 | 20-26 | Speed BRT |
| 0.7 | 3.6 | 1-19 | Services BRT |
Conclusions:
The research showed that there is a significant relation between BRT establishment and Customer satisfaction measurement in Tehran. There is a significant relation between BRT Services and Customer satisfaction. Therefore, the first of secondary hypothesis is verified. Thus variety services in BRT measured by indexes of Fare collection, availability to ticket kiosk, price of ticket, security ,clearance, availability to stations and accountability of BRT responsible.
There is a significant relation between BRT speed and Customer satisfaction. Therefore, the second of secondary hypothesis is verified. Thus BRT speed was measured by indexes of stoplight number, number of buses, defection of bus and waiting time.
There is a significant relation between driver’s behavior and Customer satisfaction. Therefore, the third of secondary hypothesis is verified. Thus driver’s behavior in BRT was measured by indexes of treatment of drivers and coverage of drivers (Formal coverage).
There is a significant relation between ergonomics and customer satisfaction. Therefore, the forth of secondary hypothesis is verified. Thus ergonomics in BRT was measured by indexes of number of bus seats, air condition, the number of catches and convenience of stations.
There is a significant relation between ITS and Customer satisfaction. Therefore, the fifth of secondary hypothesis is verified. Thus ITS in BRT was measured by indexes of Signals priority to drivers and time bus arrival notifications. Mean of customer satisfaction measurement by servqual model shows sequentially that drivers behavior item, then ergonomics item, then speed item, then services item and the last, ITS item influence in customer satisfaction measurement.
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