Monitoring Changes in Transit Service Quality over Time

Abstract Measuring and monitoring quality of supplied services is fundamental for guaranteeing to the users of the services good levels of quality and a continuous improvement of the service characteristics. Many researchers consider the customer's point of view as the most relevant for evaluating transit service quality, being the customers the real users of the service. For this reason, service quality has been generally evaluated based on customer perceptions and expectations about the service, collected through the well-known Customer Satisfaction Surveys. In this work, just the issue of measuring service quality by analysing users’ opinions is approached. Specifically, data from Customer Satisfaction Surveys conducted by the Transport Consortium of Granada (Spain) over the years (from 2006 to 2012) are analysed, and the main changes produced in transit service over time are monitored by different ways, identifying deteriorating conditions and highlighting improvements in service in response to service intervention aspects.

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