Evaluating City Bus Service Based on Zone of Tolerance of Expectation and Normalized Importance
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2010
Subject Area
mode - bus, place - asia, ridership - perceptions, operations - performance
Keywords
evaluating service quality, bus, transit management, Taipei
Abstract
Improving the quality of the city bus service is an important topic for public transportation management. One way of measuring this improvement is to measure the gap between the passengers' expectation and their perception. The expectation can be divided into desired service and adequate service, and the difference between these two is the tolerant zone of expectation. The present study has two purposes. The first is to propose a model for evaluating service quality based on the zone of tolerance of expectation (ZSQ). The second is to build an analytical framework for prioritizing attributes (NIZSQ, normalized importance-ZSQ analysis) through a quadrant analysis based on ZSQ and normalized importance. This research took the Taipei city bus service as an example. The data were collected by means of questionnaires. Statistical analysis was adopted to test the hypotheses. The result showed that the top two priorities for improvement are those attributes that are relevant to the interaction with the passengers, and the support from operations management.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Taylor and Francis, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Hu, K-C. (2010). Evaluating City Bus Service Based on Zone of Tolerance of Expectation and Normalized Importance. Transport Reviews, Vol. 30, (2), Pp. 195-217.
