Analysis of public transport users’ satisfaction using quality function deployment: Belgrade case study

Abstract

This paper presents a case study using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method to identify urban public transport users’ needs and requests and to improve service quality in urban public passenger transport in Belgrade. In order to determine users’ satisfaction, a direct interview – survey a sample of 15000 of urban public passenger transport system users, according to the defined questionnaire has been performed. Results of these interviews are used as input in the first stage of QFD method. An overall unit of eight features and a total of 48 sub-features were defined, which describes all aspects of quality of system and services in urban public passenger transport. The results show that for maximizing effects of quality of service improvement and satisfying customers’ requirements, the public transport service providers and managers in Belgrade should focus primarily on the service reliability and vehicle elements. The two most important quality of service sub-features in urban public passenger transport system in Belgrade based on frequency of statements of users was regularity with 4896 (32.64%) and vehicle comfort (not crowded vehicles) with 3446 (22.97%) statements. Based on the service features analysis within the house of quality, it was defined that the biggest influence is generated through system functioning parameters (reliability): frequency with relative importance 22.0%, staff (drivers) with relative importance 14.0% and headway with relative importance 13.0%. Based on absolute importance the greatest importance should be assigned to vehicle frequency – rank 1, staff (drivers) – rank 2 and headway – rank 3.

Keywords

• urban public passenger transport
• users’ satisfaction
• transport service
• quality function deployment
• house of quality