A STUDY ON OMNI BUS SERVICE ENRICHMENT

Transcription

1 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX A STUDY ON OMNI BUS SERVICE ENRICHMENT *Dr. K. Apsar Basha * **Dr. B.J. Mohit Wills ABSTRACT Developing countries like India are aware of the fact that factors such as economic development, education, employment and standard of living are important criteria based on which a country may be adjudged as a developed nation. Such growth, be it economic or social, is comprehensible only if the country has adequate infrastructure facilities like transport, power, water and the like. India is also directing all her efforts towards becoming a developed nation. The paper explains the reviews of passenger on service enrichment and their association with the profile discriminate aspects of rural and urban passengers was also explained in this study. Key words: Omni bus services, rural and urban areas, enrichment, expectations. INTRODUCTION The omni bus passengers preferences are assumed to be reflected in their expectations and perceptions of service quality. If the service-offer within the public transportation industry is homogeneous or heterogeneous, this is assumed to be reflected in expectations and the subsequent perception of service quality. These industry related issues are further assumed to be reflected in the overall customers satisfaction score for the industry, i.e., a high degree of congruence is expected to give a significantly higher satisfaction score than a low degree of congruence. De Vellis (1991) indicates that a measurement tool or scale, should include questions to reflect theoretical variants, which the observations may not reveal. Parasuraman et al., (1988 and 1991) discussed ten dimensions of passengers perceived service quality and investigate each one with experiments and tests. These are tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, competence, courtesy, credibility, security, access, communication and understanding customers. Rietveld and Roson (2002) identified supply and demand-oriented quality measures in public transport. Edvardsson (1998) identified the treatment/conduct, punctuality, information, technical faults, space in design of the vehicle, traffic planning and others as service quality of transport. The term BUSQUAL is used to measure the service quality of road transport as did by the RAILQUAL of Shainesh and Mathur (2000); and an AIRQUAL by Ekiz et al., (2006) to measure the service quality in railways and air transport respectively. Commonly used techniques for measuring service quality include customer service audits (Takuechi and Qelch, 1983), gap analysis, SERVPERF (Gronin and * Dr. K. Apsar Basha, Assistant Professor, Commerce Wing - DDE, Annamalai University, Annamalainagar , Tamil Nadu, India ** Dr.B.J. Mohit Wills, Assistant Professor, Commerce Wing-DDE, Annamalai University, Annamalainagar , Tamil Nadu, India 213

2 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX Taylor, 1992), the critical incident technique (Bitner, 1990), and the sequential incident technique (Staurs and Weinlich, 1997). Passengers Satisfaction Due to the specific characteristics of services, the development of customer relationship is important in a range of service markets. Passengers satisfaction is recognized as a key intermediary objective in service operations representing an affective self-evaluation based on price and quality trade-offs (Roest and Pieters, 1997). Rust and Oliver (1994) were the first to define satisfaction as the customers fulfillment response which is both an evaluation and an emotion-based response to a service. Crosby and Stevens (1987) referred to relationship satisfaction as a multidimensional construct, which is a prerequisite for relationship quality with three distinct levels like satisfactory interaction with the personnel, satisfaction with the core service; and satisfaction with the organisation. Transportation service is important in determining quality of life. The quality of the bus service is one of the key factors that affects the willingness of the public to select the bus service during the rush hours. Reliability of transport system is considered critically important by most transport users because passengers are adversely affected by the consequences associated with reliability such as additional waiting time, lat or early arrivals at destinations and missed connections, which increases their anxiety and discomfort. The passengers attitude towards the service plays an important role for the success of the transport companies. These efforts include measures to improve the infrastructure facilities such as road transport. The importance of rural road transport can be fathomed from the fact that two thirds of the Indian population lives in villages. An efficient transport system is essential for the movement of both men and materials, which would help in the spread of knowledge and technology into areas including rural locations. The cost of transport and convenience of the people in terms of time and carrying goods to the market are some of the factors considered in choosing the mode of transport. The continuous improvement in the service is essential for the survival of any service providers. The transport industry is not an exceptional case. The service enrichment should be based on the level of expectation of the passengers on date. Only then, the continuous improvement can be brought into the field. Hence, the present study has made an attempt to examine the ways for service enrichment as per the view of these passengers. The ways of service enrichment have been examined with the help of sy4ice adequacy and superiority. PASSENGERS PREFERENCES The passengers preferences are assumed to be reflected in their expectations and perceptions of service quality. If the service-offer within the public transportation industry is homogeneous or heterogeneous, this is assumed to be reflected in expectations and the subsequent perception of service quality. These industry related issues are further assumed to be reflected in the overall customers satisfaction score 214

3 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX for the industry, i.e., a high degree of congruence is expected to give a significantly higher satisfaction score than a low degree of congruence. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Transport services offered to the public may be categorized as a function of exposure to competition, i.e., from pure monopoly to true competition. Independent of the positioning on this continuum, the goal for all the transport services must be to maximize the citizens utility. When users have real alternative service offers, increased user retention based on satisfaction with the transport service will be critical to the agents success. In most of the countries, public players are losing relative market share to private alternatives. A relative reduction in real or perceived service quality compared to private alternatives is one explanation of this development. In the public transport, the players are operating their buses just for the sake of operation. They are not bothering about their customers needs and wants. Even though, it may give better result today, it will not be good for future. The private players are playing a dominant role in covering the long route with the help of their omni bus services. They are highly competitive to other mode of transports. RELATED REVIEWS concept that involves those attributes of the service which affect its fitness for purpose and the attributes, and indeed fitness for purpose, require detailed definition in relation to local objectives and circumstances. Panduranga Murthy (1995) evaluated the customer service in bus passenger transportation. He identified the importance of price, quality, product features to increase the customer satisfaction in bus services. The important features identified by him are punctuality, safety, reliability, regularity and customer service. Tor Wallin Andreassen (1995) revealed that the public transportation industry offers low utility because of the low degree of congruence between customer preferences and service category differences. Privatization and deregulation are two solutions which have proved successful with regard to increasing expected utility. Hood (1995) identified seven dimensions that need to be addressed if change is to be brought in the delivery of public services. These are: a shift towards greater competition; an increased stress on private-sector style of management; a greater stress on discipline and frugality in the use of resources; a shift towards disaggregation; more emphasis on visible hands-on management; an increased use of measurable standard of performance; and a greater emphasis on output controls. Donmelly et al., (1995) stated that the public sector caters for two types of customers namely those who pay for the provision of a service and those who do not pay for the provision of service. Lovelock (1996) pointed out that the critical incidents always involve in the interactions between service customers and service contact employees. Since service delivery involves all aspects of the service organization and the environment with which the customer interacts, other objects and people may lead to critical incidents as well. The 215

4 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX identified four main elements in the service delivery system are service personnel, service facilities and equipment, non-personal communication and other people. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY Based on the proposed research model, the objectives of the study are: 1. To study service quality gap through service enrichment of omni bus services. SAMPLING DESIGN (Research Design) The research design of the present study is descriptive in nature. Since the present study describes the profile of the passengers in the public transport, service quality in the omni bus services, the level of perception on service quality factor in the omni bus services and the passengers satisfaction. The present study is confined to pre-determined objectives and also depends upon pre-planned methodology to fulfill the objectives of the study, and so it is descriptive in nature. SAMPLING FRAME WORK OF THE STUDY The sampling framework of the study is divided into determination of sample size and the distribution of sample size in the population. In the present study, the sample size is determined by the given formula: 2 Z n D Whereas n - Number of sample size Z - Z statistics at five per cent level = 1.96 σ - Standard deviation of passenger s satisfaction on omni bus service at pilot study = D - Error acceptance = n.05 = = The total sample of 550 respondents are equally distributed to the eleven cities selected for the study. Hence, the sampled passenger from each come to 50 passengers. The applied sampling procedure is purposive sampling. LOCALE OF RESEARCH While studying the service quality of the omni bus services, it is imperative to select the study area. In the present study, it is decided to include the omni bus services offered by the service provides at eleven important cities at Tamilnadu. These are Chennai, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Trichy, Coimbatore, Salem, Ramnad, Tirupur, Hosur, Tuticorin and Erode. 216

5 FRAME WORK OF ANALYSIS September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX The collected data was analysed with the help of statistical tools such as t test, factor analysis, f test (etc). RESULT AND ANALYSIS Respondents Views on Factors in Service Adequacy and Superiority The respondents views on factors in service adequacy and superiority has been measured by the mean score of the variables in each factor. The mean score of each factor among the rural and the urban respondents has been computed separately. The t test has been administered to find out the significant difference among the rural and the urban respondents regarding their view on each factor. The results are given in Table 1. TABLE 1 Respondents View on Factors in Service Adequacy and Superiority (SAS) Sl.No. Factors in SAS Mean Score Among Respondents in t Rural Urban statistics 1. Assurance * 2. Empathy * 3. Reliability * 4. Responsiveness * 5. Tangibles * 6. Comfort * 7. Connection * 8. Convenience * *Significant at 5 per cent level. Source: Primary Data. The highly viewed factors in service adequacy and superiority (SAS) among the rural respondents are connection and empathy since their mean scores are and respectively. Among the urban respondents, these two are responsiveness and connection since their mean scores are and respectively. Regarding the view on the factors in the SAS, the significant difference among the two group of respondents has been noticed in the case of the eight variables in the SAS since their respective t statistics are Significant at five per cent level. Association between Profile of Respondents and their views on factors in SAS The profile of the respondents may have its own association with the level of view on factors in SAS. The present study has made an attempt to examine the association with the help of one way analysis of variance. All the 12 profile variables have been included for the present study. The results of one way analysis of variance are presented in Table

6 TABLE 2 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX Association Between Profile of the Respondents and their View on Factors in SAS Sl. F statistics Profile variables No. Assurance Empathy Reliability Responsiveness 1. Age * * * * 2. Level of education * * * * 3. Nature of family Family size Occupational background * * * 6. Number of earning members per family * 7. Personal income per month * * * * 8. Family income per month * * * * 9. Average expenditure on bus service per month * * Frequency of service availed * * Gender Marital Status * * Significant at 5 per cent level. Source: Primary Data Regarding the views on assurance, the significantly associating profile variables are age, level of education, occupational background, personal income, family income and frequency of service availed since their respectively F statistics are Significant at five per cent level. The significantly associating profile variables with the view on empathy are age, level of education, personal income, family income, average expenditure on bus service per month, frequency of service availed and marital status. The significantly associating profile variables with their views on reliability are age, level of education, occupational background, personal income and family income whereas regarding the view on responsiveness, the significantly associating profile variables are age, level of education, occupational background, number of earning members per family, personal income and family income since their respective F statistics are Significant at five per cent level. The association between the profile of the respondents and their views on tangibles, comfort, connection and convenience has been examined with the help of one way analysis of variance. The results are given in Table

7 TABLE 3 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX Association between Profile of the Respondents and their View on Factors in SAS Sl. F statistics Profile variables No. Tangibles Comfort Connection Convenience 1. Age * * * * 2. Level of education * * * 3. Nature of family Family size Occupational background * * * 6. Number of earning members per family * * * 7. Personal income per month * * * * 8. Family income per month * * * * 9. Average expenditure on bus service per month * * * 10. Frequency of service availed * * * * 11. Gender Marital Status * Significant at 5 per cent level. Source: Primary Data The significantly associating profile variables with the level of view on tangibles are age, personal income, family income, average expenditure on bus service per month and frequency of service availed since their respective F statistics are Significant at five per cent level. Regarding the view on comfort, the significantly associating profile variables are age, level of education, occupational background, number of earning members per family, personal income, family income and frequency of service availed. Regarding the perception on connection factor, the significantly associating profile variables are age, level of education, occupational background, number of earning members per family, personal income, family income, average expenditure on bus service per month and frequency of service availed whereas in the case of view on convenience factor, the significantly associating profile variables are age, level of education, occupational background, number of earning members per family, personal income, family income, average expenditure on bus service per month and frequency of service availed since their respective F statistics are Significant at five per cent level. Discriminant Factors in SAS among the Rural and Urban Respondents The level of view on factors in the SAS may be differing among the rural and the urban respondents. It is imperative to identify the important discriminant factor among the two groups of respondents for some policy implications. The two group discriminant analysis has been administered for this purpose. Initially, the mean differences among the rural and urban respondents regarding each factor and its 219

8 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX statistical significance have been computed. The discriminant power of the factors in the SAS has been computed by Wilks Lambda. The results are given in the Table 4. TABLE 4 Mean Difference and Discriminant Power of Factors in SAS Sl. No. Factors in SAS Mean Score among Customers in Min Difference t statistics Wilks Lambda 1. Assurance(X1) * Empathy(X2) * Reliability (X3) * Responsiveness (X4) * Tangibles (X5) * Comfort (X6) * Connection (X7) * Convenience (X8) * * Significant at 5 per cent level. Source: Primary Data. The significant mean differences are noticed in the case of all the eight factors since their respective t statistics are Significant at five per cent level. The higher mean differences are identified in the case of comfort and responsiveness since their mean differences are and respectively. The higher discriminant powers are identified in the case of responsiveness and comfort, since their respective Wilks Lambda are and The significant factors in the SAS have been included for the estimation of two group discriminant analysis. The unstandardized procedure has been followed to estimate the function. The estimated function is: Z = X X X X X X X X 8 The relative contribution of discriminant factor in the Total Discriminant Score is estimated by the product of discriminant coefficient and the mean difference of the respective factors. The results are given in Table

9 TABLE 5 September 2013, Volume: II, Issue: IX Mean Difference and Discriminant Power of Factors in SAS Sl. No. CSQFs Discriminant Co-efficients Mean Difference Product Relative Contribution in TDS 1. Assurance (X1) Empathy(X2) Reliability (X3) Responsiveness (X4) Tangibles (X5) Comfort (X6) Connection (X7) Convenience (X8) Per cent of cases correctly classified: Source: Primary Data TOTAL The higher discriminant coefficients are noticed in the case of reliability and responsiveness since their respective coefficients are and It shows the higher influence of the above said two factors in discriminant function. The higher relative contribution in the TDS is identified in the case of responsiveness and reliability since its relative contributions are and per cent respectively. The estimated two group discriminant function correctly classifies the cases to the extent of per cent. The analysis infers that the important discriminant factors expected among the rural and the urban respondents are responsiveness and reliability which are highly expected by the urban respondents when compared with the rural respondents. CONCLUDING REMARKS The present study concludes that the service enrichment of the omni bus services are not upto the level of expectation of the respondents especially the urban respondents. It is commonly seen in the case of basic, value added and critical service quality. The level of passengers satisfaction is lesser among the urban respondents than among the rural respondents. 221

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