Public Transport Passenger Satisfaction Evaluation Theory And Its Empirical Study

With large population and limited land in our country, the population concentrated on cities and towns, and tens of millions of people are squeezing into cities every year. With the rising standard of living of the people, cars are gradually entering the homes, so city traffic jams and travel inconvenience is becoming increasingly apparent. Because of limited urban space, it is impossible for road infrastructure to be constructed unlimited. Undoubtedly, urban transit is an effective means of solution to this problem. However, the development status quo of transit in our country is not satisfactory, which leads to substantial loss of public transport passengers. Thus transit priority development policies were introduced to improve transit efficiency and effectively alleviate traffic congestion. It is based on high-capacity, fast transit systems and other transport modes as supplements. It is the best way to attract passenger flow, facilitate the public to travel, reduce the stress of roads, and ease traffic congestion of the city. The further meaning of transit priority is the concept of public service priorities, which improve transit service levels, then improve the transit contribution rate, attract more passengers, and effectively implement the transit priority policy.At present, customer-centric, customer demand-oriented and improving customer satisfaction and loyalty management concept is becoming the mainstream, and customers become the deciding factor for the survival and development of enterprises. Domestic and foreign scholars have conducted substantial research on the theories of customer satisfaction. A number of countries and regions have established a customer satisfaction index model successively, and launched Customer Satisfaction Measurement. To transit enterprises, which provide travel services for urban residents, quality is the soul of service.Only if taking passengers as center in terms of ideology can it be expressed as providing people-based services for passengers in the service process.To maximize the transit passengers and improve service quality perceived by passengers, it is obvious that the pursuit of passenger satisfaction is an active and effective means. Improving transit services quality of depends on the assessment and monitoring of the whole society, in particular, the object of transit services– passenger. Passenger Satisfaction Index is a comprehensive indicator for measuring the quality of transit service. The scientific and reasonable evaluation on the quality of transit service can be used as the basis to improve the quality of service for transit enterprises. Relying on the theories of customer satisfaction, customer behavior, customer psychology and sociology, in this dissertation, public transport service quality, passenger satisfaction, passenger loyalty, satisfaction measurement and evaluation of in-depth study are studied to measure the transit passenger satisfaction quantitatively.In this context, it studied the passenger satisfaction theory qualitatively and quantitatively, introduced the existing research results, set up operational evaluation model and provided data to reflect the reality for transit companies. The main conclusions and results of research are as follows:1. It discussed the characteristics of service quality and methods of assessment to explore the connotation of transit service quality.2. The connotation of customer satisfaction is summarized. From specific transaction satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction both, it defined customer satisfaction, and analyzed its application conditions, pointing out why the cumulative satisfaction was applied for transit satisfaction index measuring.3. On the basis of summary of the research results, it further explored the formation mechanism of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, studied the inherent relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, which formatted the basic assumptions of the dissertation.4. The customer satisfaction theory was introduced into urban transit service quality evaluation to analyze the impacting factors on passenger satisfaction and the results and relationship of variables, as well as to absorb the results of research of customer satisfaction index model so as to build transit passenger satisfaction model of concept and the dual selection discrete model about Passengers complain.5. The multi-angle analysis and exposition on transit service quality perceived by passengers was conducted as a main basis on measuring transit service quality.6. It studied the index weighting method of passenger satisfaction, pointing out the advantages of objective weighting method. It defined the theory of structural equation modeling, steps and algorithm. Since Passenger satisfaction in skewed distribution does not meet the requirements of normal distribution, as well as the attribute of multi- correlation of variables, and with advantage of no strict assumptions of PLS method, the structural equation model based on PLS modeling could measure passenger satisfaction quantitatively.7. It described the principles of questionnaire design and the methods of data processing, and proposed to apply the method combining probability interpolation and classification interpolation for missing data. The quality of the questionnaire was measured in both aspects of reliability and validity.8. Based on passenger satisfaction survey data of three bus lines in Changchun City, it carried out passenger satisfaction measuring model and passenger complaining dual model to conduct the empirical research, which passed the test of reliability and validity. The results of empirical research proved that passenger satisfaction impacted significantly on passenger loyalty, meanwhile on the passenger's expectation have a significant impact on transit safety and operations. Passenger expectations, quality of service and passenger satisfaction are important factors of passenger complaints.The innovation lies on:1. Passenger satisfaction degree on four aspects, such as environmental facility, travel facilities, bus safety and operating service satisfaction were proposed to evaluate the quality of service. Passenger's psychological feeling is one of the main reasons to choose travel modes. In this paper, Perceived Service Quality and Passenger Customer Satisfaction theory were introduced into transit service quality assessment. In order to indeed meet the travel needs of passengers, it improved the traditional evaluation index of bus service quality.2. For the multi-angle understanding and measurement of passenger's real feeling on Passenger Bus Service, indirect observation of the latent variable can be carried out to form a direct evaluation of a series of significant variables. Scale table tool was used to show the passenger's views, preferences and attitudes on public transport services objectively and user-friendly, and internal consistency reliability test a group of significant variables to measure the extent of the corresponding latent variable.3. It set up passenger satisfaction on transit industry model. Drawing on research results of other service industries, in view of the characteristics of China's transit industry, it analyzed the impact factors of passenger satisfaction and took passenger loyalty as the only result variable of passenger satisfaction. 4. PLS modeling method was used to solve the problem of quantitative Passenger Satisfaction Index. Based on the theory of structural equation modeling, according to the skewed distribution characteristic of passenger satisfaction, in order to calculate the score of latent variables as well as the PLS modeling method required a smaller sample size, to evaluate satisfaction accurately and objectively, PLS modeling method was used to build Passenger Satisfaction Index survey model, to provide real, objective data for enterprises.Passenger satisfaction index measurement modal applying on enterprises could reflect realistic data approximately and help enterprises understand the Passenger satisfaction and impact factors of passenger satisfaction. It also assisted enterprises to know the impact factors of passenger complain, facilitated transit enterprises to identify their own weaknesses to be improved in a targeted manner to better meet passenger demand. It helped the residents have access to reliable transit service quality information, improved the travel experience of urban residents and enjoyed better transit services.