Descriptive evaluation in the public transport service—a study about of the satisfaction of customers

Abstract

The service sector has great socioeconomic importance in the current globalized world, so companies need to be in the business of dealing with the changes that occur in the market, especially changes related to the profile of their consumers. Therefore, it is important to measure and evaluate the quality offered by service providers. For companies that provide public services, although there is no competition during the period of validity of contracts, it is indispensable to evaluate and measure the quality of what is offered to their customers. In this sense, the present study aims to describe and analyze the customers’ expectations and perceptions levels referent to the public transport service as well identify the most important attributes of these services from customer’s opinions. To achieve the results, a questionnaire was applied to 238 users of collective transport using a Likert scale of 5 points to measure their expectations and perceptions. It was concluded that the attributes that most cause dissatisfaction to public transport users are those related to safety and lack of space within buses for so many passengers, especially at peak times. For the fulfillment of these challenges posed by the economic and political pressures on public expenditure, it is essential to understand the customers’ expectations, to promote improvements in the service.