Service Quality of Public Road Passenger Transport in Thailand Was Investigated
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KasetsartKasetsart Journal Journal ofof Social Social SciencesSciences 40 (2019) 74–81 e 40 (2019) 1 9 Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences journal homepage: http://kjss.kasetsart.org ServiceForecasting quality equilibrium of public road quantity passenger and transport price inon Thailand the world natural rubber market Pittawat Ueasangkomsate Department of Management, Kasetsart Business School,a, * Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand b Suratwadee Arunwarakorn , Kamonchanok Suthiwartnarueput , c, 1 Pongsa Pornchaiwiseskul Articlea Info Abstract Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand b Department of Commerce, Chulalongkorn Business School, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand Articlec history: The service quality of public road passenger transport in Thailand was investigated. Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand Received 21 October 2016 Revised 30 January 2017 The research applied a modified SERVQUAL approach to evaluate service quality. AcceptedArticle 18 Info February 2017 TheexpressedAbstract modified expectations SERVQUAL and model perceptions consisted of ofservice five dimensions—1) quality. This research tangibility, used Available online 30 April 2019 Keywords: 2) reliability, 3) responsiveness, 4) assurance, and 5) access—using 17 attribute that Article history: Natural rubber on the world market has had small increases in demand and big increases in Received 27 March 2017 provinces in six regions in Thailand. The results showed the biggest gap was the supply. Therefore, demand and supply are imbalanced and this impacts the natural rubber Revised 2 July 2017 a questionnaire to acquire 2,729 usable samples by stratified sampling from 16 large modified SERVQUAL, price of the world market causing a decline. This study aimed: (1) to develop de-mand and Accepted 25 July 2017 Thailandpublic transport, supply models to predict the world natural rubber quantity using simultaneous equations; Available online assurance dimension followed by the access and tangibility dimensions, respectively, service quality, (2) to predict all explanatory variables in the demand and supply models using the simple at the .01 significance level, while tangibility was the most influential dimension 1 2017 moving average technique; and (3) to estimate the equilibrium quantity and price for world Keywords: September affecting perceived service quality followed by the assurance and reliability dimensions, natural rubber during 2017e2026. First, in the demand model, there was a positive equilibrium price, respectively at the .01 significance level. The results indicated that perceived service relationship of the explanatory variables of world natural rubber production quantity, equilibrium quantity, syntheticqualityThe study for rubber passengersindicated price, that percentagein both the on-boardthe yearBangkok of security year metropolitan (%YOY) attribute of gross area contributed anddomestic the East productto theregion service (GDP), had natural rubber, theand samethe exchange level of rate,poor while perceived the negative service relationship quality that variable definitely was required natural rubberimprovement. price. In simultaneous equation the supply model, the positive relationship variables were natural rubber price, mature qualityarea, rainfall, of passenger and crude transport oil price, followed while the by negative staff courtesy relationship and knowledge,variables were and world bus driver’s’natural rubber ability, stock respectively. and urea Finally, price. theSecond, results the couldpredicted be used variables to identify indicated the thatkey attribute production, in %YOY each of region GDP, exchange that should rate, amountbe improved of stock, with and© 2019therespect mature Kasetsart to areathe University. modifiedtended to SERVQUALgradually increase, model whilein Thailand. the synthetic rubber price, urea price, rainfall, and crude oil price tended to slowly decrease from 2017 to 2026. Finally, the equilibrium quantity forecast tended to gradually increase from 953.75 to 957.15 thousand tonnes, and the equilibrium Introduction price tended to fluctuate and decrease from 169.78 to 162.05 thousand yen from 2017 to 2026. Consequently, this study may be helpful to the governments of the world's impor- Public passenger transport is essential for people in most transportservice quality at 17 ofpercent public (Ministry road passenger of Transport, transport 2015). and In found 2014, a tant natural rubber producing countries to plan policies to reduce natural rubber pro- countries as it moves passengers from one location to another the Department of Land Transport evaluated the nationwide duction costs and stabilize the natural rubber price in the future, such as by setting suitable areas, 2014). of world Public natural rubber plantation in each country, and defining appropriate and passenger transport has been considered as asustainable broader strategy alternative croppassenger areas in satisfactioneach country. level of 73.32 percent. The Department with ease (Ojo, Mireku, Dauda, & Nutsogbodo introduced© 2017 Kasetsart increased University. efforts toPublishing improve servicesthe courtesy by Elsevier of drivers, B.V. service, security, and cleanliness to meet passengers’ to mitigate the major economic and environmental problems requirementsquality of public (Department buses and of found Land that Transport, drivers 2014). standards Thailand and with regard to the massive use of private automobiles (Cruz, Development Research Institute (TDRI) surveyed the service Barata,and water & Ferreira, transport. 2012). Public In Thailand, road passenger public road transport passenger can transport is the most important mode compared to train, air, the public buses needed to be improved. Most public buses lackedwanted safety improvements equipment and including more developmentseat belts (TDRI, regarding 2016). involve long-distance and local services, regular and charter InIntroduction addition, Thipkaisorn (2011) indicated that Thai passengers services,transport and should buses be and treated taxis as (OECD, a key 2000)component including of the buses, city coaches,development vans, strategy and other or structure vehicles. plan Public for all road income passenger groups public passenger transport. SERVQUAL is an important model * Corresponding author. The natural rubber market of the world is primarily to measure the service quality of customer satisfaction (Buttle, E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] concentrated in China, Europe, India, USA, and Japan, passengers(S. Arunwarakorn) traveling. by bus and coach within domestic areas 1996).leadrespectively, to improvementFindings which from in were measuring service the quality top thefi veservice in countriesaccordance quality of withof natural public Thai Peer review under responsibility of Kasetsart University. (World Bank, 2002). In 2015, the number of public road roadrubber passenger consumption transport in in 2015 Thailand (International based on SERVQUAL Rubber Study will percent1 Co-first of authors.total public passenger transport followed by water in Thailand was 333 million people comprising around 55 public road passengers’ requirements. Recent studies have not [email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2017.07.013 E-mail address: Peer review under responsibility of Kasetsart University. explored each region in Thailand (Earsakul, 2014; Hayeesa, 2452-3151/© 2017 Kasetsart University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. 2011;service Promchat, quality of 2009;general Siriwat, public 2008). road passenger Therefore, transport the current as study aimed to apply a SERVQUAL query to investigate the https://doi.org/10.34044/j.kjss.2019.40.1.05 defined by OECD (2000) within six regions in Thailand. The 2452-3151/© 2019 Kasetsart University P. Ueasangkomsate / Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences 40 (2019) 74–81 75 of service quality from the passenger’s point of view in different purpose was twofold. The first aim was to provide understanding telecommunication,2001). retail, information systems, leisure service, transport in each region is economically and socially important library service, and transportation (Ladhari, 2009; Wisniewski, regionsto the nation in Thailand. in maintaining Development expected ofstandards public road of consumption passenger Service Quality on Public Road Passenger Transport andtransport quality sector of life to (Redman, improve Friman,their performance Gärling, & Hartig,regarding 2013). the service quality is one of the most important factors which Secondly,service quality the results provided can betterby public guide road related passenger institutions transport in the in Public transport is an activity type of service. Therefore, Thailand. This paper is organized as follows. Section 1 describes understanding of service quality on public transport leads to a the measurement of service quality and service quality on public extendhigh service the use quality of public that transportmeets the (Fujiipassengers’ & Van, satisfaction2009). The passenger transport. Section 2 presents the methodological approach to measure the service quality of public passenger (Freitas,developed 2013). to improve the service quality of public transport. section 4 presents the conclusions including limitations and In recent decades, several studies and surveys have been transport.future