Public Transportation and Customer Satisfaction:

The Case of Indian Railways

Reeti Agarwal

In today’s competitive market scenario, organizations increasingly understand the importance of building
and effectively managing the relationship with its customers. For building and maintaining a healthy rela-
tionship with the customer, organizations need to understand and meet the expectations of its customer. The
organizations today should aim not only at satisfying the customer but should also focus on delighting him.
Thus it has become imperative for organizations to identify parameters that cause customer satisfaction or
dissatisfaction and consciously measure them so as to try and bring about the necessary changes on the
basis of customer perceptions. The present study has been undertaken to find the factors related to Indian
Railway services that have an impact on customer satisfaction. The study was conducted using the survey
method. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire from a sample of 500. Factor and regression
analysis was used to analyse the data and identify the effect of customers’ perception about the quality of
performance of various factors on customer satisfaction. The major findings of the study depict that out of
the various factors considered, employee behaviour has the maximum effect on satisfaction level of customers
with Indian Railways as a whole.

Introduction sophistication in almost all areas. The

organizations are betting heavily on these
In the twenty-first century, the business developments, but they also need to know
environment conditions are likely to be more whether their services are improving due to
volatile. The multi-dimensional develop- this or not. They need to know whether their
ments in all spheres, especially the informa- customers are satisfied with them or not and
tion technologies, activated and energized by what the level of this satisfaction is. Recent
the developed countries, have made ways for years have seen a tremendous growth in

Reeti Agarwal, Lecturer, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Vineet Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow 226010.
E-mail: reetiagarwal@hotmail.com, reeti@jiml.ac.in
GLOBAL BUSINESS REVIEW, 9:2 (2008): 257–272
SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore
DOI: 10.1177/097215090800900206

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Reeti Agarwal

the service sector. The rapid growth of ser- satisfaction is the customer’s perception that
vice sectors all over the world and the a vendor has met his expectations fully, effi-
deregulation of many service industries have ciently and promptly.
led researchers with an interest in quality Carrying an average 13 million passengers
issues to recognize the importance of acquir- in 8,250 passenger-trains daily, the Indian
ing more understanding about service per- Railways is one of the world’s largest trans-
formance. A surge in the services sector is porters of passenger traffic. Until now Indian
seeing an increase in the number of players Railways has enjoyed a near monopoly pos-
operating and entering into the services ition in the sphere of public transportation.
industry. Amidst the increasingly cut throat But the situation is undergoing a change.
competitive environment, only those com- Already one can see some form of competi-
panies who can better satisfy the customer tion being given by the low cost carriers. With
and maintain the quality of their services can the lowering of airfare and the introduction
survive and prosper. It is increasingly being of low cost airlines in the Indian skies there
recognized that high quality service is es- is a high possibility that Indian Railways will
sential for firms that want to be successful in lose out on some of its customers.
their business (Parasuraman et al. 1988; Rust At this stage what is required is a proper
and Oliver 1994). understanding of the various factors that
To survive and prosper, organizations affect customer evaluation and satisfaction
must carefully assess the changes and condi- with a public service like Indian Railways.
For consumers, evaluation and consequently
tions in their given environment. All categor-
the satisfaction with a service like railways
ies of businesses, whether private or public,
often depends on their perception of the
service or manufacturing, have realized the
quality of performance of a number of fac-
need to measure the various indicators of
tors. Knowledge and understanding of these
their performance. One of the most import-
factors is critical, particularly at a time when
ant indicators of a company’s performance is
competition for attracting and retaining cus-
customer satisfaction. The customer alone
tomers is intense. The purpose of this study
can pass the final verdict on the performance is to identify and analyse the importance
of a company and it is on him alone that customers attach to the various dimensions
the success of a business depends. An under- of Indian Railways services. The study also
standing of customer satisfaction is therefore aims to identify how customers’ perception
becoming increasingly significant. In order of performance of these dimensions affects
to gain a competitive advantage, organiza- their satisfaction level with the services of
tions need to identify parameters that cause Indian Railways as a whole. Consequently,
customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction and the study aims to identify the areas where
consciously measure them. In general, cus- attention needs to be given by the Indian
tomer satisfaction is a feeling of satisfaction Railways authorities in order to increase the
over a job well done in the past. Customer satisfaction of its customers.

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 Public Transportation and Customer Satisfaction
259

Literature Review Allen and DiCesare (1976) classified the per-

formance measures into three categories:
A review of previous studies related to public quantity of service, quality of service and
transport shows that, though a number of cost/revenue, which are further divided into
studies have been conducted in the inter- user and non-user measures. Passengers’
national arena, not many can be found in the waiting time, lost mileage and character-
Indian context. Some of the earliest studies istics of each journey mode (time of arrival,
in this area were undertaken by Allen and time spent, time of arrival at the destination)
DiCesare (1976) who considered that quality are commonly used in the industry to meas-
of service for the public transport industry ure quality of service (Pullen 1993). More re-
contained two categories: user and non-user. cently, output quality measures that have been
The user category consists of speed, reli- used for the rail system in Britain include
ability, comfort, convenience, safety, special train performance (delays per passenger
services and innovations. The non-user- train), train overcrowding, asset condition
category is composed of system efficiency, (broken rails per train mile), and safety or
pollution and demand. Silcock (1981) con-
accident risk (signals passed at danger per
ceptualized service quality for public trans-
train mile) (Pollitt and Smith 2002). Follow-
port industry as the measures of accessibility,
ing the deregulation of public transportation
reliability, comfort, convenience and safety.
in New Zealand and other countries, oper-
Pullen (1993) defined quality of service for
ators became more aware of the need to
local public transport industry as a concept
understand what their customers wanted.
that involves ‘those attributes of the service
Psychometric measures caught the attention
which affect its fitness for purpose’ and the
attributes, and indeed fitness for purpose, of many transport undertakings. The level
require detailed definition in relation to local of transport service (LOTS) was developed
objectives and circumstances. Traditionally, to measure the quality of service based on
the performance indicators for the public travel speed and comfort. The measures were
transport industry are divided into two cat- given in detail by Pullen in 1993. The rating
egories: efficiency and effectiveness. Under scale is from A (excellent) to F (not suitable).
the efficiency category, the measures are con- Each attribute was assigned a weight that
cerned with the processes that produce the reflects the importance of each attribute. The
services while the measures in the effective- weighted score reflects the performance of
ness category are used to determine how well that attribute. The overall performance (i.e.,
the services provided perform in respect to the overall LOTS value) can be obtained to
the objectives that are set for them (Pullen reflect the quality of service. Other measure-
1993). Quality of service is one of the per- ment systems are discussed in Du Plessis
formance indicators under the effectiveness (1984), Forsyth and Smyth (1986), McKnight
category. It is composed of accessibility, reli- et al. (1986), and Miller (1995). Hanna and
ability, comfort, convenience and safety. Drea (1998), and Drea and Hanna (2000) have

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Reeti Agarwal

studied quality of service in a part of the catering services. While under-reporting

Amtrak passenger rail system in the US. is certain, analysis reveals that there are more
Their research focus was on the attributes of complaints against departmental catering
service quality that influenced the transport units than against contractor-operated units
choice of the survey respondents, for ex- and that the gap is widening.
ample rail vs. automobile. The attributes Given the lack of existing studies in this
used in the first paper were: comfort, cost, area in the Indian scenario, this study has
timing (ability to travel when I want), location been undertaken to gain an insight into the
(ability to travel where I want) and in-transit performance of Indian Railways as indicated
productivity (ability to work while travel- by customer satisfaction. This study aims to
ing). In the later paper cost, convenience in identify the different factors that affect cus-
getting to the station, parking availability, tomer satisfaction with Indian Railways as a
Amtrak comfort, seat comfort, ride, seating whole.
area cleanliness, and courtesy of on-board
staff were the service quality attributes
Objectives of the Present Study
tested. Tripp and Drea (2002) also used a sur-
vey of Amtrak passengers to assess the ‘direct This study primarily aims to assess the ef-
and indirect relationship between pre-core/ fects of consumer perceptions of the various
peripheral and core service performance aspects of services provided by public trans-
components and their impact on the likeli- portation services on their level of satisfac-
hood of repeat purchase’. They found that tion with specific reference to the Indian
the core experiences on-board determined Railways. The study aims to propose a hier-
the customers’ attitude to the service pro- archical framework of the major dimensions
vider and subsequently their intention to use that have an impact on the perceived quality
the train again. These attributes included an- of the services provided by Indian Railways
nouncements, seat comfort, ride, cleanliness and hence their overall satisfaction. The pre-
of the seating area, courtesy of on-board staff, sent study has been undertaken with a view
rest rooms and café car conditions. to identify and analyse the factors affecting
As far as the Indian scenario is concerned, the satisfaction level of customers with the
only a few studies are forthcoming related services of Indian Railways. Thus the ob-
to Indian Railways. Prominent among these jectives of the study can be enumerated as
is the CAG Audit Report No. 9A of 2002 follows:
entitled ‘Passenger Amenities on Indian
Railways’. The report acknowledges that the 1. To find out the importance attached to
provision of passenger amenities is an im- the various aspects of Indian Railway
portant objective for the Indian Railways, by the customers.
both as a business ethic and a social obliga- 2. To identify the factors affecting cus-
tion. It evaluates the performance of services tomer satisfaction with Indian Rail-
provided in terms of complaints against ways based on customers’ perception

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 Public Transportation and Customer Satisfaction
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of the quality of performance of these questionnaire was prepared. Pretesting of the

factors. questionnaire was done on 30 people.
3. To analyse the direction and magni-
tude of the effect of these factors on Item Selection
customers’ overall satisfaction with
Indian Railways. Customer satisfaction with Indian Railways
was measured on 47 attributes covering dif-
ferent areas of railway services such as:
Methodology of Research ticketing, platform, journey, and employee
behaviour. The attributes were identified
Scope and Sample of the Study from the previous studies carried out in this
area and also from focus group discussion
In order to analyse customer satisfaction with
with different people in various age and in-
Indian Railways, the study was conducted
come groups. The subsequent list of attri-
using the survey method on a sample of 500
butes was presented to 20 people used in the
respondents. The study is confined to re-
preliminary exploration and they were asked
spondents from the city of Lucknow only.
to suggest any changes to the list. On the basis
The sample was chosen according to the
of responses thus gathered, the language
quota sampling procedure. Quota sampling
of some of the parameters was modified
has been used based on demographic data
slightly and used in the final survey.
such as age, income and occupation. Within
the quota group, convenience sampling has Scale and Scoring of Items
been used. A great majority (71 per cent) of
the respondents belonged to the 31–60 age For the various attributes shortlisted, the re-
group (experience group). An overwhelming spondents were asked to indicate the import-
majority (61 per cent) of the respondents ance of these variables for them. For this
have their own businesses or are in the ser- purpose they were asked to denote the im-
vice industry. Sixty-seven per cent of the re- portance on a five-point scale with 1 denoting
spondents have monthly household incomes highly unimportant and 5 denoting highly
of between Rs. 10,001 to Rs. 30,000, out of important. Respondents were also asked
which 40 per cent have monthly household to denote their perception of the quality of
incomes of between Rs. 10,001 to Rs. 20,000. performance of different parameters on a
The people in these areas were interviewed five-point scale, where 1 denoted highly un-
personally and the various services of Indian satisfactory and 5 denoted highly satisfac-
Railways were evaluated on 47 attributes tory. In order to judge the overall satisfaction
using a questionnaire.
of customers with Indian Railways as a
Method of Data Collection whole, the respondents were asked to denote
their satisfaction on a five-point scale with 1
In the present study, data was collected through denoting highly unsatisfactory and 5 de-
the personal survey method. A structured noting highly satisfactory.

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Research Findings and Analysis Table 1

Test Statistics
Importance of Various Dimensions N 500
of Indian Railways Services
Kendall’s W(a) .051
Chi-Square 1165.707
The current study attempts to propose a hier- df 46
archical framework of the major dimensions Asymp. Sig. .000
having an impact on the perceived quality
A Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance.
of the services of Indian Railways and hence
the overall satisfaction level of the customers. to the varied dimensions of the services of
With the objective of ranking hierarchically Indian Railways–with safety during journey
the major dimensions of Indian Railway followed by security during journey being
services, the non-parametric Kendall’s W test ranked as the most important, while am-
was used. As shown in Table 1, an asymptotic bience and environment were ranked as
significance of 0.000 clearly revealed that the the least important. The ranks are given in
respondents attach different relative weights Table 2.

Table 2
Ranks

Mean Rank

Safety during journey 29.20

Security during journey 28.86
Water facility during journey 28.38
Security & Safety at reservation counter 26.86
Cleanliness on train 26.82
Updated information about status of train on train 26.51
Food facility on train 26.06
Information display system on platform 25.93
Queue/Waiting Time at ticket counter 25.88
Safety on platform 25.71
Trust worthy employees 25.56
Proper Ventilation at ticket 25.43
Prompt service 25.36
Knowledgeable/Informative employees 25.24
Security on platform 25.06
Unbiased employees 24.94
Friendly/Polite employees 24.71
Announcements on platforms 24.67
Cleanliness on platform 24.64
Number of Reservation counters 24.58
Drinking facility on platform 24.44
Coach maintenance 24.37

(Table 2 continued)

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 Public Transportation and Customer Satisfaction
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(Table 2 continued)
Mean Rank

Punctual employees 24.27

Seating facilities at ticketing area 24.23
Number of Trains on a route 24.17
Timing of Trains 24.05
Efficient employees 23.91
Availability of Coach Attendant/Helper on train 23.86
Cooperative/Helpful employees 23.83
Other services like bedding, blanket, etc available on train 23.72
Food facility on platform 23.50
Accurate information 23.24
Duration/Timing of ticket counter 22.60
Waiting space at ticketing area 22.47
Compliant handling System 22.42
Waiting room facility on platform 22.40
Telephone facility on platform 22.32
Seating facility on platform 22.19
Enquiry handling at ticket counter 22.16
Ticket availability through multi channels 22.05
Medical facility on platform 21.88
Enquiry system on platform 21.74
Bridge facility/connectivity 21.50
Fan/Lighting (platform) 20.55
ATM facility on platform 18.89
Availability of carriers (Coolie and Trolley) 18.87
Ambience/Environment 17.99

In order to analyse the effect of these KMO measures the magnitude of ob-
dimensions on customer satisfaction with the served correlation coefficients to the magni-
services of Indian Railways as a whole, the tude of partial correlation coefficients. A
first step involved reducing the number of value greater than 0.5 is desirable. Bartlett’s
statements to a smaller number of variables test measures the correlation of variables. A
which could then be used for further analy- probability of less than 0.05 is acceptable. The
sis. Factor analysis was used for this purpose. hypothesis formulated is as follows:
Ho: (Null Hypothesis): There is insignifi-
Judging the Appropriateness of Factor Analysis cant correlation between the variables.
H1: (Alternate Hypothesis): There is sig-
In order to find out the appropriateness of nificant correlation between the
factor analysis for the set of statements variables.
(variables), Kaiser Meyer Olkin (KMO) and
Bartlett’s test was used. The results are As can be seen from Table 3, the KMO
shown in Table 3. value is greater than 0.5 and the significance

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Reeti Agarwal

Table 3
KMO and Bartlett’s Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .794
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 30852.520
Df 1275
Sig. .000

level also came out to be 0.000 which shows .589∗(x33) + .819∗(x34) + .763∗(x35) +.751∗
that the KMO value is significant at 5 per cent (x36) + .859∗(x37)
level of significance. Hence the alternate
hypothesis is accepted, denoting that factor Factor 3:
analysis is appropriate. .675∗(x12) + .636∗(x13) + .569∗(x14) +.558∗
(x15) + .605∗(x16) + .534∗(x17) + .827∗(x18) +
Computing the Number of Factors and .835∗(x19) + .786∗(20)
Identifying the Variables under Each Factor
Factor 4:
Factor analysis was run on the 47 statements
used to judge customers’ perception about .530∗(x3) + .799∗(x4) + .586∗(x5) + .771∗(x6)
the quality of performance of the different Factor 5:
aspects of Indian Railways services. The
number of factors to be taken into account .666∗(x21) + .742∗(x22) + .487∗(x23) +.420∗
was chosen on the basis of an eigenvalue (x24) + .696∗(x25) + .649∗(x38)
greater than 1.2 and a percentage of variance Factor 6:
greater than 75 per cent. Table 4 shows the
rotated component matrix obtained on the .619∗(x1) + .585∗(x2) + .594∗(x7) + .794∗(x8) +
basis of factor analysis. .884∗(x9) + .547∗(x10) + .626∗(x11)
On the basis of factor analysis, the num-
ber of factors came out to be six in number The variables in the factor have been selected
as shown by the rotated component matrix. on the basis of the highest loadings for the
particular factor. On the basis of the variable
Variables Under Each of the Factors composition of each factor the factors have
Identified been named as follows:
Factor 1:
.819∗(x39) + .637∗(x40) + .467∗(x41) + .661∗ Factor 1-Employee Behaviour
(x42) + .685∗(x43) + .870∗(x44) + .788∗(x45) + Factor 2-Tangible Platform Amenities
.710∗(x46) + .830∗(x47) Factor 3-Services on Train
Factor 4-Availability of Trains and Tickets
Factor 2: Factor 5-Customer-Oriented Basic Plat-
.483∗(x26) + .487∗(x27) + .567∗(x28) +.716∗ form Services
(x29) + .520∗(x30) + .628∗(x31) + .549∗(x32) + Factor 6-Reservation Counters

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 Table 4
Rotated Component Matrix (a)

1 2 3 4 5 6

x1. Duration/Timing of ticket counter .052 .039 –.040 .574 .205 .619
x2. Queue/Waiting Time at ticket counter .255 –.057 .140 .480 .122 .585
x3. Number of Trains on a route .068 .161 .076 .530 .033 .137
x4. Timing of Trains .186 .067 .219 .799 .114 .154
x5. Ticket availability through multi channels –.023 –.063 –.100 .586 .165 –.173
x6. Enquiry handling at ticket counter .030 .185 .173 .771 –.004 –.009
x7. Security & Safety at ticket counter .037 .130 .049 .203 .176 .594
x8. Number of Reservation counters –.094 –.027 –.044 .230 .162 .794
x9. Waiting space at ticket counter –.035 .047 .091 .149 .090 .884
x10. Seating facilities at ticket counter .102 .133 .020 .469 –.072 .547
x11. Proper Ventilation at ticket counter .210 .039 .157 –.017 .137 .626
x12. Food facility on train .038 –.025 .675 –.170 .078 .319
x13. Water facility on train .501 .140 .636 –.003 .159 .636
x14. Security on train .198 .076 .569 .214 .265 .454
x15. Safety on train .170 .078 .558 .305 .272 .471
x16. Cleanliness on train .456 .041 .605 .175 .063 .337
x17. Coach maintenance .347 .141 .534 .254 –.146 .470
x18. Updated information about status of train on train .179 .111 .827 .048 .012 .081
x19. Availability of Coach Attendant/Helper on train .192 .188 .835 .202 –.058 .062

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x20. Other services like bedding, blanket, etc .133 .208 .786 .017 –.024 .116
x21. Announcement on platform .012 .337 –.185 –.029 .666 .121
x22. Information display system on platform .142 .187 –.159 .117 .742 .266
x23. Enquiry system on platform –.193 .217 .194 .455 .487 .342
x24. Seating facility on platform .229 .137 .171 .402 .420 .389
x25. Waiting room facility on platform .198 –.025 .146 .396 .696 .003

(Table 4 continued)
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Reeti Agarwal

(Table 4 continued)

1 2 3 4 5 6

x26. Cleanliness on platform .247 .483 .302 .321 .305 .460

x27. Security on platform .207 .487 .332 .341 .320 .337
x28. Safety on platform .185 .567 .224 .307 .248 .271
x29. Food facility on platform .125 .716 .045 .143 .019 .003

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x30. Drinking facility on platform .172 .520 .463 .048 .181 .283
x31. Medical facility on platform .141 .628 .417 .011 .076 .158
x32. Telephone facility on platform .141 .549 .243 .214 .036 –.057
x33. ATM facility on platform .228 .589 .256 .099 .118 –.082
x34. Bridge facility/connectivity in platform .179 .819 .135 .171 .022 .088
x35. Ambience/Environment of platform .228 .763 .172 .178 .137 .248
x36. Fan/Lighting on platform .189 .751 .225 –.014 .209 –.074
x37. Availability of carriers (Coolie & Trolley) on platform .134 .859 .057 .041 .154 .065
x38. Compliant handling System .235 .163 .167 .154 .649 .200
x39. Friendly/Polite employees .819 .111 .156 .229 .188 –.092
x40. Cooperative/Helpful employees .637 .035 .370 .178 .406 –.154
x41. Knowledgeable/Informative employees .467 .134 .396 .068 .375 .201
x42. Accuracy of information .661 .094 .287 .105 .111 .328
x43. Prompt service .685 .111 .325 –.012 .303 .152
x44. Punctuality by employees .870 .193 .078 –.007 –.049 .089
x45. Unbiased employees .788 .074 .112 .098 –.056 .168

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x46. Efficient employees .710 .145 .262 .072 .165 .030
x47. Trust worthy employees .830 .191 .007 .033 –.058 .058
Notes: Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
A Rotation converged in 12 iterations.
 Public Transportation and Customer Satisfaction
267

The Effect of Various Factors on Customer the dependent variable. Looking at the stand-
Satisfaction with Indian Railways as a Whole ardized beta values it can be said that in abso-
lute terms, Factor 1, i.e., Employee Behaviour,
In order to find out the effect of the factors has the maximum effect on overall satis-
identified above on the overall satisfaction faction of the customer while Factor 4, i.e.,
of customers with Indian Railways, regres- Availability of Trains and Tickets has the least
sion analysis was done with the six factor effect.
scores as the independent variables and Thus, it was found that, hierarchically, em-
customer satisfaction with Indian Railways ployee behaviour, customer-oriented basic
as a whole as the dependent variable. platform services, reservation counters, ser-
The value of adjusted R2 was found to be vices on train, tangible platform amenities,
0.733 which shows that the model is a good followed by availability of trains and tickets,
fit. The significance of the F-value came out were amongst the significant factors having
to be 0.000, which indicates that the model is an impact on the overall satisfaction/dis-
statistically significant at 5 per cent level of satisfaction of the customer with the services
significance. of Indian Railways.
The unstandardized and the standardized On the basis of the values obtained, a re-
beta values and the significance levels of gression equation can be formulated to get the
t-tests for the significance of individual inde- value of the dependent variable as follows:
pendent variables are given in Table 5.
As can be seen from the table, all variables Customer Satisfaction with Indian
are statistically significant in the model at Railways as a Whole = 0.501 +.050∗ (Em-
5 per cent significance level. Looking at the ployee Behaviour) +.009∗ (Tangible Plat-
‘B’ values for all the variables it can be seen form Amenities) +.019∗(Services on Train)
that all the factors are positively related to +.002∗(Availability of Trains and Tickets)

Table 5
Coefficients (a)

Unstandardized Standardized
Coefficients Coefficients Sig.
Model B Beta Std. Error

1 (Constant) .501 .000

Factor 1-Employee Behaviour .050 .355 .000
Factor 2-Tangible Platform Amenities .009 .093 .049
Factor 3-Services on Train .019 .106 .023
Factor 4-Availability of Trains and Tickets .002 .004 .028
Factor 5-Customer Oriented Basic Platform Services .114 .344 .000
Factor 6-Reservation Counters .035 .135 .004
Note: A Dependent Variable: How much are you satisfied with the Indian Railways as a whole?

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Reeti Agarwal

+.114∗(Customer Oriented Basic Platform with employee behaviour, tangible platform

Services) +.035∗(Reservation Counters) amenities, services on trains, availability of
trains and tickets, customer-oriented basic
The equation obtained denotes that cus- platform services and reservation counters
tomers’ satisfaction with Indian Railways as increases. The model can also be represented
a whole will increase when their satisfaction diagrammatically as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1
Proposed Model of Customer Satisfaction with Indian Railways as a whole

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 Public Transportation and Customer Satisfaction
269

The estimated increase in overall satis- Since safety and security during the jour-
faction with Indian Railways for every unit ney are considered to be highly important
increase or decrease in these variables is by the customers, they should be afforded
given by the beta values of the respective more attention by the railways authorities.
variables. Thus if satisfaction with employee The proposed model of customer satisfaction
behaviour increases by one unit, overall satis- with Indian Railways means that careful
faction is estimated to increase by 0.355, if attention should be paid by the railway
all other variables are unchanged. authorities to each aspect of the services of
Indian Railways, to ensure that customers are
Managerial Implications satisfied—not only with the primary service,
but also with the holistic service experience.
and Recommendations
As reflected in the proposed model of cus-
In today’s ever-increasing globalization of tomer satisfaction, employee behaviour has
services and brands, a public transportation been assigned the greatest relative import-
service business like Indian Railways needs ance by the respondents. This implies that
to attend to the satisfaction of their cus- the behaviour of employees—their friend-
tomers, particularly with respect to those liness, politeness, cooperation, promptness,
variables considered important by customers efficiency, knowledge level, trustworthiness,
in their evaluation and choice. The study appearance, etcetera—can reinforce or de-
provides a reference framework for under- crease the satisfaction level of the customers.
standing and describing the importance of Within the constraints imposed by legal
different variables in affecting customer’s obligations and skill requirements, service
satisfaction with Indian Railways as a whole. firms should seek to recruit staff to fill spe-
The basic premise of this study has been cific roles, train them to effectively handle
that the satisfaction level of customers with the customers, and enable systems to moni-
the services of Indian Railways is strongly tor their speech, behaviour and performance.
influenced by perceptions of customers re- After employee behaviour, the next most
garding their satisfaction with the various important dimension was that of customer-
dimensions of Indian Railways. The results oriented basic platform services, which
showed that when the subjects perceived the include dimensions such as: announcement,
performance of various dimensions to be of information display system and enquiry
superior quality, they were more satisfied system on the platform, seating and waiting
with the Indian Railways as a whole. On the facility on the platform, and the complaint
other hand, when respondents perceived the handling system. This implies that although
performance of various dimensions to be of tangible amenities are beneficial to the
poor quality, they were less satisfied with customers, a focus on customer convenience
Indian Railways as a whole. These findings and providing the required support to cus-
would appear to be generalisable to other tomers on the platforms are considered to be
cities as well since the dimensions remain more important. These services are import-
more or less the same. ant to give direction and guidance to the

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Reeti Agarwal

customers so that they are aware of what journey a customer undertakes. If the journey
needs to be done and how. These dimensions itself is not comfortable it will lead to core
help to guide customers through the environ- service failure and would ultimately result
ment. Customers tend to become disoriented in the customer being dissatisfied with the
when they cannot derive clear information, overall experience. Railway authorities there-
resulting in anxiety and uncertainty about fore need to ensure proper safety and
how to proceed in order to obtain the desired security on the train. Contracts can be en-
service. Inexperienced customers can easily tered into with other parties to provide better
feel lost in a confusing environment and ex- facilities of food and drinks on board the
perience anger and frustration as a result. train. The railway authorities should also en-
The challenge for railway authorities is to sure that proper service in terms of up-to-
have proper customer-oriented services on date information and clean bedsheets and
the platforms to guide them well. blankets is being provided to customers.
The initial contact of customers with the Finally, in the model of customer satisfaction,
railways services is when they have to get the last dimension affecting the overall
their reservations made. Thus the third im- satisfaction of customers is tangible platform
portant dimension affecting the satisfaction services, which includes cleanliness, safety
level of the customers as per the model is and security on the platform, availability of
reservation counters under the preview of food and water, miscellaneous services such
which we have: the duration and timing of as ATMs, telephones, etcetera. Tangible as-
ticket counter, queue/waiting time at ticket pects like fans and lights, bridges and con-
counters, security and safety at ticket coun- nectivity are also included in this dimension.
ters, number of reservation counters, waiting These aspects in the service environment act
space, seating facilities, and proper ventila- as explicit or implicit signals to communicate
tion at the ticket counter. These aspects add the service’s image. In particular, first-time
to the convenience and the feeling of well- customers will automatically try to draw
being among customers. Proper consider- meanings and will form their perceptions
ation along these dimensions can reduce the from these tangible cues. With reference to
feeling of discomfort among customers and, platform amenities, security and safety, along
consequently, increase their satisfaction with general cleanliness and pleasant atmos-
levels. Services on trains is the next important pheric conditions prevailing on the platform,
factor affecting the satisfaction level of cus- was also accorded a high degree of import-
tomers. This factor includes the availability ance by the customers. In conclusion it can
of food and water on the train, proper secur- be said that although individuals often form
ity and safety, cleanliness and maintenance perceptions about particular aspects or indi-
of the train, availability of status information, vidual dimensions of a service, it is the total
availability of attendants, bedding etcetera. configuration of all these aspects that deter-
The core service of Indian Railways is the mines consumer responses and satisfaction

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 Public Transportation and Customer Satisfaction
271

with the service as a whole. Consumers per- Directions for Future Research
ceive a service performance holistically,
and consumer responses to a physical en- The sample for this research was based on
vironment depend on ensemble effects or the respondents of a specific geographical
configurations. Services have to be seen area (Lucknow City). The study, therefore, is
holistically, which means that no dimension limited to the extent that this sample cannot
of the design can be optimized in isolation. be projected to the entire state, country or
All aspects need to be given attention to, foreign countries. There is no denying the fact
depending on the importance attached to that, because of socio-economic and cultural
them by customers. This will ensure a high differences, there is a variation in the percep-
level of customer satisfaction with the service tions of people. Thus the study could be
as a whole, which will consequentially lead extended to other parts of the country so that
to customer loyalty and repatronage. the findings may be more useful.

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