Analysis Of The Passenger Service Quality In Pakistan Railway
Context of Study
The purpose of carrying out this research is that Service Quality is a very new and comparatively unidentified field of study in Pakistan. Very few sectors are understand the need to conduct studies on services quality keeping customers on board in order to understand how customers perceive the services quality provided by companies, developing strategies based on the studies and maximize profit using these strategies. Specially in Pakistan Railways (PR) which is facing huge deficit in the past years. Progressive railway systems believe in collection of data regarding their overall service quality while the customer is onboard or has availed the service in past. Hence the core purpose of this research is to conduct study on service quality of PR.
Background
The Pakistan Railways was founded in 1861 and is 157 years old which makes it one of the oldest railways system all over the world. Not only the PR provides vital connecting links between cities of Pakistan but provides links to neighboring countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, China, and India. Presently the PR is comprised of five main lines and 20 branch lines. Even the historical poor performance of PR has been able to provide 50% total annual revenue through passenger traffic to the country. Many folds increase in Pakistan’s population has resulted in increase in number of passengers travelling through PR. Till 1970s the PR handled 73% of freight traffic which was less than four percent in 2015. With a broad system spread the nation over, Pakistan Railroads assumes a key job in the social and financial improvement of Pakistan. PR is a foremost method of transportation for mass quick travel. Right now, all significant urban areas of Pakistan are associated with rail transport organize. Pakistan Railways lost its market shares in passenger segment cause of absence of customer responsiveness and bad public apprehension. Amid the couple of decades, the rail transport system is towards its most noticeably bad decline. Therefore, there is a lack of research to quantify the service quality in Pakistan when all is said and done and to gauge the passenger’s discernment about the nature of services conveyed by the passenger segment specifically.
Research Objective
Previous studies on railway systems throughout the world indicate that increasing the overall service quality by improving the standards of previously mentioned factors have resulted in increment of profitability, market share and loyalty of customers. Progressive railway systems believe in collection of data regarding their overall service quality while the customer is onboard or has availed the service in past. This data is further analyzed, and future predictions and strategies are devised. Hence, the specific objectives of this research are
- To identify and position the key forces, affecting the RAILQUAL of PR, keeping customers on board.
- Developing and proposing possible marketing strategies that can be adopted by PR to increase customer satisfaction, profit maximization which will enable them to compete in the Global market.
- To fill in the huge knowledge gap on PR services quality. Problem StatementReview of service quality is important to thrive in any business. Service quality is a accumulation of number of factors. Existing data can be processed using number of statistical methodologies to provide greater insides into any business. Smart business leaders are fast in developing new as well as amending existing strategies to increase the service quality of their business and organization for attaining maximum possible customers satisfaction.
For any organization or a business, keeping a track of customer satisfaction is one of the core foci. Previous research and literature also emphasis on the use of statistical methodologies to get an insight into service quality to gain customer loyalty and thus up gradation of productivity and performance of an organization or business. Pakistan Railways (PR) which is the focus of this thesis, presently faces tremendous challenges. We identify that the absence of good service and poor marketing strategies has resulted in tremendous loss to PR. This study intends to explore factors effecting the PR passenger’s satisfaction levels, devising a logical insight into the factors hampering the service quality of PR, and finally proposing new strategies to increase the quality of PR service. Demand for good transportation service is very high in Pakistan and a good quality services from PR can cover most of this demand deficit. It is believed that a good quality PR is life line for Pakistan and a profitable PR can contribute to the economic growth of nation tremendously. Like any other sector, PR must strive to optimize its profitability and retain or increase its customers bank. Loyalty of customers of PR is identified to be combination of several factors which:
ul>
In this study we will investigate the following questions.
- What are the RAILQUAL factors that have critical impact on customers satisfaction in PR?
- Which factor of RAILQUAL influence most on customer satisfaction?
- What sort of RAILQUAL standard strategies can be proposed to PR to enhance their services quality?
Contribution
This thesis report is unique in itself as there has been no previous literature or research available on Applicability of fuzzy logics in investigating the factors influencing the passenger service quality in Pakistan Railways using RAILQUAL to propose new strategies to increase the service quality. the financial advancement of a nation is primarily subjected to its efficient in transport system, which leaves a dire need to conduct detailed researches on the performance of PR, and its services quality in perspective of passenger’s satisfaction. The prime objective is to extract a sample from the representative population availing PR transport services regarding several variables such as reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, network quality, ticketing, punctuality etc. that have severe influence on the quality of service. We position these variables based on fuzzy logic which is a type of multi-esteemed logic got from fluzzy set hypothesis to manage thinking that is surmised as opposed to exact. Doing so we tend to device new strategies, along with providing recommendations on the improvement of existing ones, that will result in increased service quality and eventually increment in profitability to PR.
Delimitation
- The core focus of our study geographically is on Karachi to Lahore, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi and other cities railway quality of PR. The reason of selecting Karachi as a medium of our study is, we can easily collect data on consumer satisfaction in Karachi and also cause the number of population availing PR as medium of transportation is comparatively higher than other cities reason it being one of the most populated city of Pakistan.
- Will be using Fuzzy logics reason of it being more reasonable approach to utilize linguistic assessments rather than numerical qualities. Fuzzy logic helps in speaking to the ambiguity of evaluators judgments.
Conceptual Framework
The idea of this conceptual frame work was taken from an article based on service quality of hospital, was completely modified and came up with new conceptual frame work based on RAILQUAL. Knowledge GapIt is important to understand that Pakistan Railways is dying in some horrible, nightmarish way. In the course of the most recent 5 years the quantity of day by day passenger services has declined from 230 to 92. In past 157 years of PR, There is a huge gap of knowledge in Pakistan on railways as compared to its Asian competitors like India and China who come up with new studies on railways passengers satisfactions almost every year. No research has been conducted on the service quality of PR and possible strategies that can be adopted to improve the PR system, keeping customers on board in the study. Hence, in order to increase the customers satisfaction, maximizing profit in Pakistan Railways and to compete in the Global market, this gap needs to filled, which is the core purpose of this study. MethodologyThe methodological discussion of this study is to portray the method implemented with a specific end goal to answer the research questions expressed previously. The techniques and information utilized in the investigation are briefly discussed.
Research Design
The SERVQUAL approach is the most widely recognized method for estimating services quality. The credit for proclaiming the service quality research goes to Parasuraman et al. They derived a proportion of service quality, got from measures on various services, rather than depending on prior measurements of good quality in the manufacturing sector. As a SERVQUAL survey is build utilizing Likert scaling (from 1-5 including SD, D, N, A, S) the classes are positioned in ordinal scales, which demonstrate that the computation of mean scores isn't a productive strategy for assessment of service quality. To measure the nature of service quality comprehensively, the factors utilized in SERVQUAL, Public transport industry and railway service sector ought to be gathered together to shape a pool of items for estimation. Subsequently, we have modified the factors in the SERVQUAL model and made a RAILQUAL for estimation of railway passenger services qualityWe will apply fuzzy measurements of S-I (satisfaction and importance degree) degree. The measurement of S-I gap with fuzzy methodology is to diminish subjectivity and uncertainty of passenger’s judgements of service quality. Fuzzy logic is more reasonable approach to utilize linguistic assessments rather than numerical qualities. Fuzzy logic helps in speaking to the ambiguity of evaluators judgments. To give more objective data, we fuzzify satisfaction degree and importance degree as triangular fuzzy numbers.
Data Collection Instrument
Based on the modification we done in the factors of SERVQUAL, we will develop RAILQUAL for estimation of railway passenger service quality and conducting a quantitative research approach and develop a questionnaire which will have 6 factors hygiene, Punctuality, healthcare, safety and security, information provision and infrastructure and 23 variables based on customers satisfaction and importance degree.
Data Analysis Method
Will be using new method of measuring service quality based on triangular Fuzzy number of importance degree and fuzzy number of satisfaction degree (S-I). 1. Make a triangular fuzzy number for passengers satisfaction and importance linguistic terms. 2. Identifying the weak and strong factors and based on the results develop strategies to work on the weak factors. If V ˂ 0 that factor is weak. If V ˃ 0 that factor is strong. If V = 0 that factor uses the resources efficiently
Population and Sampling
These Questionnaires will be filled by employees of different departments of Public and Private companies of Karachi who are currently using PR as a means of transportation. A total of 350 questionnaires are given to the senior officers of different departments of 20 companies who will further distribute these questionnaires to those employees who are currently using PR as a means of transportation. Every office was appointed around 6 to 11 questionnaires depending on the numbers.
Ethical Consideration
The information was gathered from the questionnaires; the employees who filled the questionnaires weren’t asked to mention names. The conclusions from the research is utilized only for research and the feedback of the employees completely classified. The data that was collected was examined without any sort of manipulation or alterations. Besides, the studies that were utilized in this exploration as a base for this investigation were referred to properly as the analysts show admiration for the old studies conducted. Reliability and ValidityReliability testing was done by separating the 23 items based on intelligent thinking and joined to shape factors on which reliability testing was carried out. Cronbach Alpha, one of the most commonly and affective method of reliability testing was used for this purpose. Cronbach numbers were extended from 0. 7 to 0. 8 on all 6 factors. And in order to ensure the validity of the information gathered the data authentic source that is from public and private sector companies employees who have been previously utilizing PR as means of travelling.
