Understanding the public rail quality of service towards commuters' loyalty behavior in Greater Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

Sustainability in urban transport mechanisms is a matter of significance in developing economies. Assessing the commuters' behavior towards urban transport system facilitates the authorities to devise the policies for the safe and advanced choice of mobility. In the Klang Valley of Malaysia, the personal mobility practices have created the challenges of overcrowding the urban roads with automobile cars which resulted in economic, environmental, and infrastructure losses. The public rail transit system is deemed as the preferable choice of solution. To understand the perception of rail transit service attributes from commuters' viewpoint, a quantitative study was conducted by accumulating Service Quality (SQ) of rail network towards Behavioural Intention or Loyalty (BI) of commuter to use the public transport. Satisfaction (SAT) was added as mediation between SQ and BI. An online survey was conducted that resulted in 141 commuters' responses. The data were analyzed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and it was found that SQ has a positive and significant impact on SAT and BI. The partial mediation was developed from the path analysis of the trio. The study strengthened the vitality of service quality features for enhancing the loyalty of denizens towards public transport mechanism. The research provided the attributes of transport services to focus on more for commuter integration.