| Summary |
Ni-Cheng Tsui , 2006.06
Department of Transportation Technology and Management
National Chiao Tung University
Scheduled coach service faces the stress of competition of enhancing service quality continuously after the operation right of routes is obtained. Therefore it becomes a very important issue to understand the factors affecting waiting experience, and try to improve service. Previous research considered that waiting experience is composed of perceived duration, affective response and service evaluation. The former two have influence on each other and on the latter. To improve passengers’waiting experience, it is necessary to find out the antecedents affecting perceived duration and affective response. Hence, after reviewing previous research, this study considered perceived crowding in addition to waiting duration information and filled waiting time applied more frequently.
Previous research about waiting experience seldom considered the effect of personal traits, and demographic statistics such as age and sex quantified more easily were discussed at most. As a result, this research took account of a hardly quantified psychology disposition-public self-consciousness disposition, in order to explain passengers’ waiting experience more.
To certify the goodness of fit of the model established in this study, we used “Structural Equation Modeling,” as analytical tool, and the path analysis is followed by confirmatory factor analysis. The research targets are the passengers taking short-term (Taipei-Hsinchu) scheduled coach and mid-term (Taipei-Taichung) scheduled bus. The survey method consists of choosing coach in Taipei inter-city coach station, issuing questionnaires to the passengers on the coach and receiving as they got off. Granting 600 questionnaires altogether in this research, the effective questionnaires are 424.
The results indicated that (1)the main factor which affect service evaluation is passengers’ affective response. (2)All relationships between affective response and its antecedent factors were tested to have significant effects except the relationship between waiting duration information and affective response. (3)The main factor which affect waiting duration is waiting duration information. (4)Filled waiting time has significant influence on perceived crowding. (5)For high public self-consciousness disposition subgroup, the relationship between waiting duration information and affective response is significant.
In the managerial implication, several suggestions to the operation of coach station and the operation of companies are provided respectively. For the current coach station (D1 transfer station), the suggestions are that (1)improve passengers?perceived crowding by software inside the station, (2)make the style of waiting duration information the same, (3)set up sufficient entertainment facilities and various commodities to fill passengers? waiting time. For the future Chio Chiu transfer station, the suggestions are that (1)plan and design the inside space when building the station, (2)set up multi-functional stores or provid phone call service, (3)contol and manage the usage of the platform and coach schedual integrately by the station. For coach companies, the suggestions are that (1)employees in the station should behave well and keep the queue line in order, (2)pay attention to and take care of passengers?with high public self-conciousness desposition specifically, (3)provid complete waiting information, which is able to inform the passengers of the current situations. |
