Understanding the quality of railway passenger services in Wellington and its impact on passenger satisfaction

Abstract

Following the deregulation of the public transport industry, Tranz Metro, the rail commuter services provider in New Zealand, became aware of the need to provide customer-oriented services. Recognizing the need to improve customer satisfaction, this study adapts the SERVQUAL model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry in 1994, to provide more information about passengers' perception of quality. A conceptual model for this research was developed. Considering that the original dimensions in SERVQUAL might not be comprehensive enough to capture the more complex nature of rail passenger services, three dimensions (Comfort, Connection and Convenience) were added to the original five dimensions (Assurance, Reliability, Empathy, Responsiveness and Tangibles). The results show that this adaptive instrument possesses sound psychometric properties (i.e. high reliability and validity). Besides, this model performs as well as some other commonly used adaptive SERVQUAL models in various service industries. All the eight dimensions are significantly correlated with overall service quality at 99% confidence level. The correlations between the perceived service quality of the eight dimensions and overall quality perception range from 0.36 to 0.61 for Measure of Service Superiority (MSS) and from 0.19 to 0.37 for Measure of Service Adequacy (MSA). Two approaches were used in understanding the relative importance of the quality factors: a statistical approach and a direct rating approach. When the MSS scores of the eight dimensions were regressed on the overall quality measure, Assurance, Responsiveness and Empathy were found to be the significant predictors. The descending order of relative importance is Assurance, Responsiveness and Empathy. Reliability was found to be the most important feature rated directly by passengers. Seven of the eight dimensions are significantly correlated with overall satisfaction at 99% confidence level with one dimension (Connection) significantly correlated at 95%. The correlations between the perceived service quality of the eight dimensions and overall satisfaction range from 0.36 to 0.59 for MSS and from 0.14 to 0.30 for MSA. When the MSS scores of the eight dimensions were regressed on the overall satisfaction, Assurance was found to be the only significant predictor. The practical use of the concept of "zone of tolerance" to identify areas of shortfalls is illustrated in this study. The Assurance dimension falls below the zone of tolerance. "Personal safety at stations" and "information about delays" fall below the zone of tolerance for this dimension. The attribute that falls below the zone of tolerance is "having your best interests at heart" in the Empathy dimension. For the Tangibles dimension, they are "cleanliness of station", "appearance of station" and "cleanliness of train". Since this is an exploratory study, concerns regarding this adaptive SERVQUAL scale and its limitations and problems were discussed.