Quality assessment of city bus service based on subjective and objective service quality dimensions: Case study in Guwahati, India

The purpose of this paper is to estimate and compare the service quality of the city bus service measured by two different approaches which are subjective service quality dimensions and objective service quality dimensions.

The objective service quality dimensions have been estimated based on the benchmarking technique provided by the Ministry of Urban Development, India. For the analysis of subjective service quality dimensions, a questionnaire survey has been conducted to measure the users’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction about the service. The questionnaire consists of users’ socioeconomic characteristics and 23 questions related to city bus service quality dimensions. Questionnaire data have been analyzed by factor analysis, regression analysis and path analysis to find out the indicators representing subjective service quality dimensions. Finally, the overall service quality of the bus service has been determined based on both the measures.

The study indicates that the overall service quality of the bus service is different for subjective and objective analyses. While the objective measures show that the service quality is very good, the subjective measures indicate that the service is not doing well.

The analysis of the subjective dimensions is complicated. Analysis of the subjective dimensions needed more expertise and resources than the objective analysis.

In this study, the estimated service quality of the bus service is more reliable than the other methods as it comprises of both operators’ perspective and passengers’ expectations from the service.