Passengers’ Perception of Satisfaction and Its Relationship with Travel Experience Attributes: Results from an Australian Survey

Jie Yang, Nirajan Shiwakoti () and Richard Tay
Additional contact information
Jie Yang: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3000, Australia
Nirajan Shiwakoti: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3000, Australia
Richard Tay: School of Business IT and Logistics, RMIT University, Melbourne 3000, Australia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 8, 1-18

Abstract: Rail, one of the most sustainable modes of transport, is vital in carrying mass passengers in many urban cities. Passengers’ satisfaction with railway services is mostly discussed in the context of service quality in the literature. However, limited studies have considered other attributes that may influence passengers’ satisfaction, such as their travel experience and issues encountered. This study aims to systematically model passengers’ satisfaction and its relationship with travel experience attributes. This paper makes a theoretical contribution by proposing a conceptual model that evaluates the overall satisfaction of passengers through four attribute groups, including traveller attributes, trip attributes, service attributes, and other attributes. The model is tested with the 429 valid responses collected from a passenger survey targeting Metro train users in Melbourne, Australia. Result shows that the best-fitted model is produced only when all attribute groups are considered together, for which 60% of the variation in overall satisfaction is accountable. It is found that all attribute groups have at least one variable included in the final model, and the service attribute group has the greatest influence. The best model has nine significant variables, with eight having positive associations to the overall satisfaction and one variable (GroupTravel) having a negative association. This finding suggests that consideration of other attributes is also important besides the service attributes, and hence advances our scientific understanding of train passengers’ satisfaction with train services. The public transport sector and the operators can use this knowledge to improve service and increase passenger satisfaction.

Keywords: sustainable transport; customer satisfaction; passenger survey; public transport; service quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6645/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6645/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:8:p:6645-:d:1123393

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().