Marketing evaluation of public transport quality attributes: Review of two waves of research

Abstract

Marketing activity in the sector of public transport (PT) is focused on the development of alternative to private cars use. Creation of this alternative requires development and delivery of value propositions to private cars’ owners. Such value propositions should be significant to the owners and lead to switch to public transport use. The paper is designed to promote better understanding of possibilities and limitations of attributes, which define PT quality aspects focused on the attraction of private cars’ users. We carried out two waves of research based on the methodology of parametric indicators use. Attributes under study are the following: cleanliness in PT, ticket sale speed, availability of cellular communication signal, availability of WiFi, availability of navigation tools in PT, etc. Findings allowed drawing the following conclusions: characteristics of PT service indicators can be improved based on regular researches; increase in PT service quality didn’t lead to decrease in private cars number; it’s necessary to carry out the analysis of private cars’ owners’ values to find out value propositions significant to them and consequently leading to shift to PT use.