Enhanced Service Quality Leading to Commuters’ Satisfaction Perks up Usage of Public Road Transport

In the global environment of intense competition and continuous change, the state road transport undertakings need to focus on improving the level of their services and enhance the daily commuter’s satisfaction in order to achieve long-term survival. Evaluating the level of services provided by the existing public mass road transit service providers can help the policymakers to make better decisions for improving commuter satisfaction. The objective of the present research is to (a) measure the level of services provided by the state road transport corporations in Tamil Nadu and (b) evaluate the satisfaction of its daily commuters. An improved method that incorporates the daily commuters, who use both the public and private modes of transport in Tamil Nadu, is deployed for the evaluation. Moreover, the present study investigates the gap between commuters’ expectations and commuters’ perceptions with regard to the level of the services offered by the state road transport corporations in Tamil Nadu.

The empirical study was undertaken using SERVQUAL (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) questionnaire in the seven zones of Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporations - TNSTC (32 Districts of Tamil Nadu). In total, 2788 questionnaires with valid responses were collected from the daily commuters using both personal and public mode transit. Results showed that there is a negative gap between the perception of the present service offered by the state transport corporations and the expectations of the daily commuters. Further, the proposed model suggested that the tangible dimensions of service quality have significant influence on the commuters’ satisfaction towards public mass road transit system in Tamil Nadu.

With these findings, it is concluded that the service dimensions of public transport policy of the Government need a slight change, which would strongly encourage the daily commuters to use public transport.