Estimation of Utility and Weight of Factors of Bus Transit’s Service Quality

Abstract

Service quality plays a major role in the bus transit operation and lack of service quality is one of the prime reasons for the dissatisfaction of the passengers towards bus transit. This paper investigates five elements of service quality attributes such as walking time to bus halt, waiting time at bus halt, travel time, in bus environment and station environment using conjoint analysis using certain values for those elements. Through data analysis, utility estimate for walking time to bus halt shows a greater significance on the passengers evaluation which is followed by in bus environment, waiting time, station environment and travel time. Then the weight of the factors are obtained through utility estimate which finds that passengers' value time spent on reaching bus halt the most followed by waiting time at bus halts, in bus environment. But in the station environment passengers show little interest on the travel time.