Assessment of the Relationship between Intercity Public Transport Service Quality and the Service Attributes

Abstract

The study assessed the relationship between intercity public transport service quality and the attributes of public transport services. The focus of the study was to ascertain the coefficients of passenger comfort, passenger safety, travel punctuality, public transport service information, and crew quality of intercity public transport operators as key attributes of public transport service quality. The study also established the degree of passenger comfort, safety, punctuality, service information and crew quality of public transport operators in Imo State on intercity public transport service quality. The study used survey research design in which primary data was obtained and used in the study. In particular, questionnaires were used as survey instruments to obtained data from selected intercity public transport passengers. The sampled operators include Good is Good Motors (GIGM), Heartland Travels, LIBRA Motors, EKESONS Transport, CHISCO Transport, GUO Transport, Young Shall Grow Motors, and ABC Transport. The study used the principal component factor analysis method and the log-linear multiple regression analysis to analyze the data obtained. The findings of the study indicate that GIGM has the highest comfort coefficient of 79.82% followed by ABC transport with mean comfort score of 79.32%. CHISCO Transport had  the least comfort with mean comfort score of 52.8%. GIGM also offered the highest level of safety with a mean safety coefficient of 75.2%. This was followed by ABC transport with mean safety score of 71.9% while Young Shall Grow with mean safety score of 57.4% had the least safety coefficient. The result of the study indicates that for each individual intercity travel operators, the r-square which measures the explanatory power of the relations is above 50% (71%>53.1%>50%). For example, GIGM has r-square of 53.1%, indicating that about 53.1% variations in service quality of GIGM on the Owerri-Lagos route and Owerri-Abuja route is explained by passenger comfort, crew quality, safety, punctuality and travel information. The main contributions of the study is that public transport the operators that offer the highest level of comfort, safety and punctuality in service delivery have the highest service quality scores which also influences positively the extent of passenger patronage for their services. It was recommended that operators should improve the identified significant factors of service attributes in order to improve intercity public transport service quality on Owerr-Abuja and Owerri-Lagos corridors.