1.0. Background of the story
The definition of service quality means customer perception on how well does a service can meets or exceeds the expectation (Czepiel 1990). As for the words “public transport” itself, it is being describes as a vehicle that caters the passenger to reach a destination and every usage of this particular public transportation will be charge with a minimum or a special fares to each passenger at the same times. In transport, there are a special word being known as mobility it is usually defined as the ability to move anything for example like people, goods and other living thing or non living thing from one place to another place and it is measured by the number of trips made by a person each day (Vasconcellos, 2001) whereas ‘personal mobility’ refers to the use of personal transport; it can be a car or a motorcycle or others. The term of “public” is widely used; this term is not considered as secret or private, the term itself open to or concerning the people as a whole, sharing their very own common interest with everybody.
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Based on Md Aftabuzzaman, Graham Currie, Majid Sarvi, the main urban public transport problem is the road traffic congestion and this is one of the reason why people do not switch to using public transport (Cervero 1991; Downs 1992). By having public transport system, efficient public transport (PT) can be regard as one of the potential solutions that can solve the problem of urban road traffic congestion (Hyman and Mayhew 2002,; Pucher et al. 2007; Vuchic 1999. The main public transport such as buses, taxis, trains was provided by the government towards the public’s use. For convenient of people who are staying in urban and rural areas ( White 2002), governments have provided a better service quality to people to make sure the service they provided are able to satisfy the consumer needs and expectation as well as to increase the level of service quality of public transport. In public transport, service quality can be focus in term of tangibles, reliability and responsiveness (Parasuraman et. al., 1985) and it has becomes a significant issues which is to have a better and comfortable environment. Mostly customers do not satisfy with the physical facilities in public transport. Cleanliness, comfortableness, frequencies, responsiveness of the driver and conductor of public transports are the major issues customer always complaints and disappointed on it. Besides that, buses mostly not provided convenience facilities such as wheelchair, which is needed for disable person.
However, Malaysia Prime Minister himself dissatisfied with the current issues and problems after being experienced on using the LRT service. Problems for Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Keretanapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) are the time arrival always delays and not to forget, service likes punctuality, frequencies of train arrives on time and insufficient of space to carry passengers are also the main issues that caused congestion occurs (Utusan 2008). Even though the public transportation is modernized and has been updated in urban areas but with the lacking of service quality and well-implemented by the government, it will lead a negative perception tot the customers and they won’t satisfy of using public transport service that they provided which are insufficient and inefficiency ( Karen Thompson, Peter Schofield 2002). Despite the routing scheduled stating the bus would arrive on every 15 minutes but users has been waiting the half an hour and yet the bus still not arrives. This is one of the punctuality problems faced by the public buses in Malaysia (The Star 2008). Another incident occurred in urban area Kuala Lumpur, which are included LRT train and Rapid KL. The train and bus clashing with each other in 200 meter from Bukit Jalil Station (The Star 2008). This shows that the safety measurement of public transports become worst and action should be taken into consideration.
Transit service quality and reliability is essential for transit passengers and it did shown that both factors do affect passenger satisfaction substantially (Tyrinopoulos, 2008). Furthermore, transit service reliability regard as one of the significant factor for commuters to decide on which types of public transportation they prefer to use the most (Benjamin, 1998). Due to inefficiency of system, buses did not arrive on time, departure delays, lacking of passenger seats, thus, these factors would cause passenger overloads. Commuters would more preferable to drive their own vehicles instead of using public transport to access to work, recreation, school during the peak service periods. It must be given extra attention on inefficiency system of buses in order to improving the reliability towards of passengers and commuters. However, service extension wouldn’t be necessary if the passenger loading was equally distributed and buses were regularly spaced enough.
According to Margareta Friman and Markus Felleson, new services of public transport are being developed and old services are being improved or upgraded in order to meet the potential and present customer’s requirement. To encourage more people to use the public transport, services should be designed and performed in a way to meet the levels of service required by customers (Beirão and Sarsfield Cabral 2007). In addition, there are few factors of how customers perceive public transport. Factors such as frequency, reliability, travel time and fare level (Hensher et al. 2003, Tyrinopoulos and Aifadopoulou 2008), comfort and cleanliness (Eboli and Mazzulla 2007, Swanson et al. 1997), network coverage or distance to stop (Eriksson et al. 2009, Tyrinopoulos and Antoniou 2008), and safety issues (Smith and Clarke 2000, Fellesson and Friman 2008) are the main factors for users do not use the public transport and also customer express their points of view about services as well as to providing judgment of public transport according to the service quality.
According to Tew Shi Yi, to enhance the percentage level of using public transportation, they managed to come up with a plan which is to offer an effective, accurate and user-friendly system for users especially for the citizens of Kuala Lumpur and it indeed bring the significant benefits to the public. Laura Eboli and Gabriella Mazzulla, one of the factors influencing the travel user choices to use the public transport is the transit service quality. Those customers who manage to use the transit service, they will probably use transit services again. In contrast, users may not use the transit services next time if they are not capable to use it well. However, improving the service quality is important for attracting new users. According to Che Rosmani Che Hassan, Mahar Diana Hamid, Norazlin Dzulkifly, Noor Zalina Mahmood, bus is one of the main alternatives of mass transportation as it is not only has better coverage areas such as Light Rail Transit (LRT) and commuter train but also cheaper for public to use it. Also, they found out that existing bus interchanges often inadequate to meet the growing needs of customers. There are thousands of people use the bus interchanges around Kuala Lumpur to reach their destination in a day. Such interchanges are Hentian Puduraya, Hentian Duta, Klang Bus Stand and more.
Based on research made by the student from the University Malaya, the survey results happens to be true that, the reason why do most of the Malaysian used private cars instead of Public Transportation were mainly, they lack of knowledge about the availability of the public transportation around their area. Not familiar on how to use the public transportation. Although there are several types of public transport but yet people rather to drive their own car and stuck in the traffic jam for few hours than using with public transport that might somehow causes problems when it is less unpredicted. However, government has comes up with a plan which is to introduce a new set of traffic management policy measures to promote the use of public transport. To encourage the residents to use the public transport, several facilities has been provided by the government in public transport station such as extra parking spaces are added nearby the public transport station so that people can park their car and ride easily, bus shuttle from bus stop to the train station or add more bus or train frequencies in either neighborhood or the city area.
Ng Choy Peng and Dadang Mohamed MA’SEOM, private vehicles have led to severe congestion and pollution. Kuala Lumpur first started to operate the light rail transit (LRT) in 1996 following by the STAR LRT and PUTRA LRT. These are the two LRT systems that operate in Kuala Lumpur after LRT. It has been found that most of the LRT stations in Kuala Lumpur areas provide inadequate parking space and this is one of the reason public do not switch to using public transport. However, to promote the use of public transport, the local authorities recommended improving the existing bus services like bus lane needs to develop even better and so on. As for the construction of the commuter train, it must be well-developed and to make sure light railway transit (LRT) is able to cater the need of residents from suburban area to urban area.
Last but not least, it is also shown that the public transportation nowadays face a very big negative impact from all the consumer and passenger that travels around with the public transport, this proven a result that the public transportation has show a lot inefficiency services that provided by each company, poor connection from certain destination to a destination itself.
1.2 Research Problem
The problem regarding to this proposal is the customer perception service quality towards public transport in Kuala Lumpur. This research is to find our factors that influencing customers not to use with the public transport. Researcher found out that private cars has become the main choice of traveler’s mode of transport is because they dissatisfied with the service quality such as reliability, cleanliness and comfortableness, facilities, travel fare and time of the public transport. There might have been frequent complaints from the commuters and passengers that the public transport did not provide a good service such as departure always delays, insufficient passenger’s seats and others. Most of them lack of knowledge about the availability of the public transportation around their area. Consumer does not know the exact traveling time and duration from the origin to the destination itself and not familiar on how to use the public transportation. So therefore most of them would not take the risk into taking public transportation as their mode of transport. Besides that, they are easily confused on what type of transport to use to reach their destination; slightly it is due to there are too many choices of public transportation to choose from in Kuala Lumpur. Furthermore, the consumer does not want to waste time waiting for the transportation with no exact arriving time everyday when they own a private car where they do not worries anything about the availability of the car, the traveling duration, and it is far more accessible from time to time.
1.3 Research Question
What are the factors that affect public not to using public transport in Kuala Lumpur?
How does the service and requirements can be improved?
What is the extension level of the service attributes must be improved in the future?
What is the overall satisfaction level of users to public transport?
What is the item of service quality that leads to customer satisfaction?
1.4 Research Objectives
The main purpose of the objective for this proposal is to measure the user’s global satisfaction with public transport as well as to examine the customer perception of using Kuala Lumpur public transport according to certain factors. The main point of this research is to find out what is the level of expectation perception of Kuala Lumpur customers about service of public transport delivered and what kind of services that affect most of the people do not use public transport. It is very important to find out how does the service and requirements can meet the customer’s satisfaction, any improvement for government to maintain the public transport, factors government would take into consideration in deciding to use public transport more or drive less in order to encourage and promote people, especially the citizens of Kuala Lumpur to use public transport services more often. Government should update the latest information such as possible routes coverage, departure and arrival time of the public transport and travel fare to the user. Suggested route will be giving out to the users to ensure users using public transport in a shortest time and cheapest way with a limited budget to reach the destination itself.
Objectives of this research are:
To determine the reason for public to choose to travel with private car but not using public transport in Kuala Lumpur.
To identify the types of service and requirements to meet the customer’s satisfaction.
To identify the extent gap of between the customer’s perception and expectation.
To identify the best solution to improve the service quality of the public transportation, like more seats and comfortable seats.
Theoretical Framework and Conceptual Framework
Basically, the above diagram is the research shows how readers are to determine the factors that encourage car users’ switch from driving car to using public transportation in Kuala Lumpur more often. Factors that can encourage the car users to switch and use the public transportation are to upgrade and expand the service quality of that particular transportation. For example, KTMB need to put in a lot of effort into upgrading their services, especially during the peak time (working hours) so that the consumer can access to it with hassle free.
Customer satisfactions are also an important aspect in the customer perception, in order to make the customer satisfied into using the transportation are to make sure that comfort are there, the warm service are they and accessibility are surrounding the public transport itself. Furthermore are the Reliability of Public Transport, in order to make the public transportation a reliable one, the management of the transportation company, must always upgrading their services and expand their services, so that the consumer can feel reliable towards the particular transportation.
Diagram above is the model of conceptual framework, which is illustrating the relationship between service and quality development, customer satisfaction, responsiveness, route accessibilities of public transport, reliability of public transport (arriving on time), and the maintenance from time to time to public transport.
1.6 Significant of study
This research helps to indentify existing problem of what factors encourage car user’s switch to use public transport which may lead to the satisfaction of car users. Through this research, the government has to put its effort to make an improvement on the public transport system such as development of an integrated and efficient public transport system. Action should be taken into consideration to upgrade the public transport to car users in order to meet the requirements and provide an efficiency services which will give customer a wide perspective of satisfaction especially focuses on the expansion of Light Rail Transit (LRT) and commuter train services. By doing this, it will not only helpful and useful at this time and future planning as well. The result of this research will improve the car user’s satisfaction. In the meantime, this planning will encourage more people to use public transport. Furthermore, it does helps to indentify additional changes that can be done to avoid further impacts to the current site emphasized in this study.
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Scope and Limitations
The scope of study is the public perception towards Kuala Lumpur public transport. Due to the time constraint, the researcher might not able to gather sources of the information from journals, online journals, further details, and newspapers. Beside of this, the researcher also facing some difficulties on the research paper because of the short time provided on the research process. Obviously, it is caused by the lack of resource that provided in KDU library and the researcher also facing some difficulties on getting the further details information about public transport in Kuala Lumpur with a limitation of resources. It also caused by the data that provided in KDU library is not the latest and the data didn’t up to date regularly.
Chapter 2 – Review of Related Literature
2.1. Factors influencing the customer perception service quality towards Public Transport in Kuala Lumpur
This review indicates that efficient public transport (PT) considered as one of the potential solutions to the problem of urban road traffic congestion (Hyman and Mayhew 2002,;Pucher et al. 2007; Vuchic 1999).The factors that influencing the customer perception towards public transportation are mainly because of the times due to the seemingly break down and the delay of train all the time, the customer do not want to take the risk taking public transportation without taking the public transportation, it will helps reduced the time of travelling and can avoid the malfunction of the public transportation all the time
The second factor that influence their perception are crowded and comfort, due to the public transportation are always crowded, there are some of the customer that afraid to take the public transportation, reason are because they have to be inside the public transport hot and stuffy, sometimes will occurred cases like sexual harassment towards the woman that travel using the public transportation. Not only that, when it is too crowded some of the customer unable to enjoy the seats due to lack of seats and also when there are too many people sometimes it will cause drowsiness when not enough air ventilate in the bus, train or taxi itself.
The third factor that influence the customer into taking the public transportation are the desirable routes are not covered by the public transportation, it is only covers some part of the city, suburban areas and town but not to most of the places, it is hard for those customer to travel using public transportation when some of the destination that offers by the public transport itself need transfers and also need walking.
The last factors that influence the customer perception are the infrequent public transportation. There are public transport that travels follow the time that set by the system, example like KTM there are a board stating that what time exactly will the train itself will arrive, but the train always reach late and never follow. So as the Monorail and also the Star LRT which provides the wrong information of time all the time? As for Putra LRT, is the only rail that shows the correct timing due to the, system will update its timing once the trains reach certain destination? Based on Apogee Research (1996), there are three main tools central to the assessment of public transport such as travel demand models, transport cost analysis techniques, transport sketch planning and impact spreadsheets and each of the tools will have their own benefits and disbenefits.
2.2. Service Quality
Surprisingly, few studies have so far analyzed this relationship. The concept of service quality involved outcomes, satisfaction of the users, and other intangibles of public transport expectations. In addition, facilities and more tangible aspect of public transports physical elements are also one of the concept of service quality (Fodness & Murray, 2007). Service quality also involves the perception and expectation of the service level delivered to the user which is meets their needs. Some models have been developed that attempt to link perceived quality dimensions to specific product attributes in the product development literature (Hauser and Clausing 1988, Nagamachi 1995). Government should increase the capacity of the public transportation, the lack of seats is what bothering the customer and why they do not ride on public transportation because it is tired to stand all the time. The service quality of the public transport is not really executed well. For example: The Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) always delays, insufficient space to carry more passenger seats and this is one of the reason caused the congestion occurred (Utusan, 2008).
Should also think of refurbish each and every of the station and stops and install the service which necessary for the convenience of all the customer and comfort while waiting for the public transport. Not only that they environment of the public transportation are good, but also the driver, staff and the one who work in the service line must possess a good heart in helping and assisting. Cleanliness and comfortable of public transport are the main appearances for users. Usually, users will focus on the cleanliness of interior, seats, and windows of the public transport. Therefore, the management has to make sure the equipment is up to date and in working order as well as the waiting areas were appropriately furnished, cleaned and well all the times. Employees and staffs of the public transport must always possess with lot of skills and knowledge on the service production in order to provide a better services to users. One of the measurements in service quality is the interior of the public transport, which is considered as the physical appearances (Parasuraman, et. al., 1988).
2.3. Reliability of Public Transport
According to Beimborn et al. (1993), it is important to provide a framework for benefit analysis and described the measurement techniques after reviewing the principle and issue for public transport benefit measurement. Reliability is focusing on frequencies and punctuality of the public transport which is arrives on time and able to meet the expectation of the users. It means the ability to perform the promised service which are more dependably and accurately (Parasuraman, et. al., 1988). Reliability of Public Transport is an important aspect, in order to gain the trust and the satisfaction of consumer. The public transportation itself must always understand what the customer need, like be punctual all the time, make sure that there are no difficulties happen, no extravagant fares being imposed at the guest or tourist. When there are a shorter way to reach the destination itself, don’t try another longer way to increase the far. Being honest all the time, this way, it will make the customer happy and thinks that the public transportation is reliable and also will gives a positive impact to the public perception and expectation.
2.4 Customer Satisfaction
(Richter et al. 2008a, 2008b) to meet potential and present customers’ requirements, quality investments that really raise the perceived service performance regarding these attributes constitute an important issue. In order to make the customer satisfied towards the public transportation, the management must always update their service and also their transport, so that the passenger can enjoy a comfort and happy ride. Staffs must always provide an efficiency service to the customers. With a reasonable fare, comfort, cleanliness and easy access to a destination or place through the scheduled, customers will gain the confidence of using public transport instead of driving their own vehicle.
Passenger takes the public transportation due to a lot of reason and the reason that drives them to take it. In order to maintain the passenger keeps taking the public transportation always make sure that there are no problems occurred during the ride or before the ride. Try doing survey to survey on the consumer on what can be upgrade and what can they do to make the customer more satisfied.
2.5. Responsiveness
According to (Parasuraman, et. al., 1988), another quality of dimension in measuring service quality is responsiveness. It means the willingness of the staff or employee to help the customers and to provide a better and prompt service to customers at the same time. However, the attitude of the driver or staff in public transport must be always possess with a good behavior. Staff and driver are required to behave in politeness and friendly with the customers instead of showing anger or rudeness to the customers. The way they speak to the customers and the way they give customer a hand are important in the service quality of responsiveness. In spite of this, it indicates that customers or user perception and expectation to the service quality in the public transport are become more important and couldn’t be neglected by the management.
2.6. Route Accessibilities
With the demand for public transportation is gaining day by day, the bus operator and rail operator must think of creating new bus routes and also train routes to let the customer access to other places which are hardly had any transportation access to it. Especially now the government had come out with an idea of building public transportation for Cheras and also Kota Damansara rail line. Even though the bus caters mostly to all the routes in Klang Valley, whether it is deep inside or outside the boundaries, but there are still some of the road that still haven accessible by the bus and also other public transportation itself. Even though some of the place had already available for public transportation but some of it needs interchanges, this will bother the customer for changing or transfer to another station.
2.6. Maintenance From Time to Time
Services that are dependent on already-existing, complex systems of infrastructure and organizational arrangements are likely to require a different logic (cf. de Brentani 1995, 2001). For a better public transportation results and attract more and more people into taking public transportation, what a operating company must do are to make sure that they always check their transport. Make sure that maintenance do from time to time to cause the train or bus or even taxi break down or having difficulties when there are passenger that are using the public transportation. Because once the train is having any difficulties problem, it will take approximately an hour or two to fix the problems. With such kind of problem will always gave the customer or passenger negative feedback towards the public transport. Even though it is not always the negative feedbacks all the time but is important to avoid such thing happen. The company must take extra precaution.
Chapter 3: Research Methodology
3.1. General Methodology
Hybrid research approach is the general methodology in this research. The definition of Hybrid research approach is the combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods and these are the two methods research that the researcher used for the proposal. Besides this, it is also known as a mix of approaches and there are also some benefits by using this research. The researcher will have a deeper understanding and knowledge of the results when using these two types of method. The efficiencies in time and cost are also one of the benefits. Other than that, this research approach allow the researcher to solve the problem occurs with the qualitative research. Hybrid research approach can solve the problem of unfamiliar to the background of the research.
3.2. Research Design
There are two types of methods the researcher used in this research. Firstly, Qualitative method, which is more to observation and also the data that collected is fact and unchangeable. The collection of the data will be based on quality and it will be presented in words. The researcher will study and interpreted the data that have been collected through online research. Qualitative method is subjective. Due to the perception of everyone is different from each other. Hence, it is difficult to generalize. The researcher will be more understanding by using this method. Quantitative method relies on the research instruments used to collect and measure the data. It is necessary to use the quantitative methods in order to understand and comprehend the core purpose of this study.
Both qualitative and quantitative methods will be use as the central focus of the research method. The survey techniques that the researcher used for the qualitative method are fully representing it. On the other hand, the researcher are doing interview for the qualitative methods. The respondents for the interview will involve Kuala Lumpur frequent public transportation user. Interview allows the researcher to gather more information and also have a better understanding on the topic. Researcher not only can get information that is not available in literature method by interview the interviewee as well as the questionnaire also can be tailored to meet the different needs of the respondents. As for the questionnaire, it will be semi-structure and more flexible during the interview.
3.3 Sources of Data
3.3.1 Primary Data
At first, the primary research is done in order to obtain the raw information from the public directly for the research proposal. For the research part, the researcher will focus on the customer perception service quality towards public transportation in Kuala Lumpur and the negative thinking of people to use public transport. Meanwhile, the researcher will find out methods that are useful to promote and encourage more people switch to use public transport especially car users. In this research, a survey that containing 10 simple multiple choices questionnaire and also an interview will be use it to collect the primary data. It takes about 5-10 minutes to fill in the survey questionnaire for each respondent. There are some choices for each of the questions and each respondent just have to choose one of the answers that they preferred the most.
Respondents are required to jotting down their own comments in the questionnaire form that stated with their own opinion towards public transport in Kuala Lumpur. This research is useful because all the survey forms will be collected and gathered by the researcher once they have done. Besides that, an interview will be conducting around the Kuala Lumpur City Centre and the group that the researcher targeted would be the all centric and mid-centric. Primary Data is also collected for this research by interviewing the Kuala Lumpur frequent public transportation users. The definition of the public transportation user will be the Malaysian users that use the public transport almost every day. Through the interview, they can provide a better idea and personal view which can help the researcher to gain more information while doing the proposal. The interview would involve questions asked by the researcher ‘one-on-one’ to a subject regarding the customer perception towards public transport and also to enquire for their opinion what types of the requirement can meet the satisfaction of public transportation users. The targeted group of the public for this interview would be college students selected randomly. The researcher will collect and analyze the information from the interview and use it to support the result of quantitative data.
3.3.2 Secondary Data
Besides using the primary researches, secondary researches are used widely in this report by the researcher too. Secondary data defined as the data that acceptable by most of the researchers and the data will definitely published in the public by other researchers. Normally, secondary data can be easily found on websites, journal, articles, books, textbooks, magazines, and also some other online resources. However, the main seco
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