Public transport or own car? The service quality concerns

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Public transport or own car? The service quality concerns

The customers of the public transport in Ulaanbaatar often face difficulties and confusing to access the public transport service which frequently results in dissatisfaction about the service quality. Consequently, they make a choice whether they need continuing to take public transportation or considering to obtain own vehicle preferring to travel everyday with the comfort and reliability. Unfortunately, this option is not a solution to the real challenges existing within the public transportation system rather again contributes to the ever growing traffic congestion. Thus, considering the dissatisfaction and decrease of the number of potential passenger capable paying full cost of the ride the aim for public transport must be enhancing quality of the service. This requires to understand the situations that lead to reducing the customer satisfaction. The paper examines issues concerning the critical aspects existing in the public transportation of Ulaanbaatar city and outlines the issues be addressed in the near future.

Background

Traveling has been increasing worldwide and increased interests in riding own car contributed significantly to the rapid growth of the number of automobiles in different countries. The trend of using own cars for travel purposes has increased considerably (Ellaway et al. 2003). The phenomenon also related with the increased motivation of the individuals to drive and the sophisticated design and comfort of the automobiles (Beirao, Sarfield Cabral. 2007). Mongolia is not exemption in regard to this. According to the statistics by the end of the 2011 more than 87000 second-hand vehicles were imported from the major automobile producing countries such as Japan and the South Korea.

The increase of the number of automobiles intensifies traffic congestion and makes the travel time longer (Arsi & Hidayat 2005; Beirao, Sarfield Cabral. 2007). Despite the traffic congestion number of negative impacts have been resulting such as loss of travel safety (Kodukula 2009), over consumption non renewable resources (Asmann, Sieber 2005), and risks for the healthy living environments (Goodwin 1996).

Numerous researchers and policy makers proved that the public transportation as a potential solution for reducing the negative impacts. For the sustainable future of the public transportation it is essential to increase the number of passengers and to maintain accessible and quality service (Anable 2005).

Ulaanbaatar is a city with an increased population, ever increasing traffic congestion and increased demand for public transport. However, the accessibility and quality service offering are real concern for the service providers. Consequently, it impacts the customer satisfaction and leads the passengers to make an important decision whether they continue to take public transport or not.

The current situation

Although the transportation sector of Mongolia is one of the well established sector in the economy which has more 60 years of history, due to the legal regulations and extensive competition oriented situation it can be reflected that the development of the public transportation system is hindering in some extent. The current paper aimed at seeking the opportunities to provide the quality service that satisfies the customers and find out the possible solutions for the challenging issues

Presently, sixty six companies serve the customers for 140 different routes using 2689 big, medium size and mini buses, electro buses and taxis. Public transportation system employs 4557 km route in five service types such as main, supporting, express, sub-urban and out-skirt districts. In 2013 262,8 mln passengers were served by public transport. By transportation means 1120 or 41 % was big and medium sized buses, 70 or 3 % was electro bus, 358 or 13% was mini bus, 727 or 27 % was taxi and 414 or 16 % was express buses served the customers.

public transport service quality

Figure 1 - The number of public transport in Ulaanbaatar (by 2014)

According to the statistics, the number of routes in the city increased by 4 or 2,8 % compared to the previous year.

Table 1 - Number of routes of the public transport (by 2013, 2014)

Notes:2014¹ - first quarter of 2014, А - bus , Т -electro bus ,ib - big capacity bus, bb - small capacity bus, 2014* - routes placed in the website of the public transportation authority in May 2014

By the customer enquiry data of the Public transportation authority in ten months in 2013 only 38 were appreciation out of 4426 enquiries. In average 23 enquiries are registered at the unit. Pareto analysis shows that 80 percent of the enquiries related with the quality of the service (see table 2 ).

Table 2 - Enquiry data between January 01, 2013 - October 22, 2013

Source: Public transportation authority 2014

Figure 2 - Enquiry by Pareto analysis

From above analysis two conditions can be concluded as the most problematic issues for the customers who need to study.

What really happens?

For better understanding the routes of the bus service we visited the website of the public transportation authority and selected the third route M:46. The route of the bus was given in smaller size picture with less pixel which can be enlarged. Understanding the routes was complicated and finding bus stations on the given map was more complicated. Researchers approached experienced customers asking to show certain bus stations on the route map, however it took 25-40 seconds to understand and find the asked location of the bus station.

Also searching bus stations using the search window of the website was not really user-friendly. For instance to find the bus stations of the selected route we had to check more than 70 information pages which was time consuming and frustrating.

Mystery shopping showed that bus stations located in the two sides of the road had different names and certain bus stations had only one stop or had no stop on the opposite side of the road and to reach the bus the customers have to walk. These facts demonstrate that the customers have a very limited access to information on bus route and even time schedule of the buses. There are not any time schedules are presented to the customers to better plan their time. Simplifying the route map seems very important for both experienced and inexperienced customers who use the public transport.

To understand the complaints regarding the routes we conducted observation involving 12 students enumerators to conduct the field observation of 10 bus routes out 15 routes that pass by the National University of Mongolia. The enumerators used specially designed form to register the data and information obtained from drivers and ticket persons. Selected six routes were served by bus corporation, municipally owned business and four routes run by smaller business companies.

Table 3 - Selected routes

Table 4 - Travel pattern at the observed sites

According to the observations the longest route among the selected ones was М:51 B Selbe resort- Shop #4 - Misheel expo which has route of 46.7 km. It can be observed the expected time of the travel differs significantly from one route to another one. For instance route number M-14 travelled longer than expected time of travel and exceeded 33 minutes. Also, route number M-8, M-11, M-14 and M-56B routes travelled longer than supposed time of arrival. In average all four buses exceeded the expected time arrival was 27.7 minutes. Observers noted that the main reasons for the delay served the traffic congestion. However, some of the buses in the selected routes had shorter time of the travel than estimated time of travel. For instance buses T:6, M-10, M-21, M:5, M51B travelled shorter time. In average they were 12 minutes ahead than expected time of arrival.

Table 5 - Distance between stations and stop duration

The reasons for the shortening the time of the travel in the time of the travel served skipping bus stops in table 5) the route and shortening time of the stops at the terminals to catch up the scheduled time (see However, drivers are very much aware about the scheduled time and number of rotations as these aspects are most important indicators for the performance. Thus, their concern is time table. From the interview with the drivers and ticket persons we clarified certain unknown aspects of the performance evaluation. The game is progressing around on how to catch the time table and complete daily rotation numbers not serving the customers. Then interest of driver and customers completely differs in terms of providing and accessing the quality service.

Another interesting issue observed in the buses was paying conditions of the passengers for the travel.

Table 6 - Bus fare payment

During the observation in total 1179 passengers were served and 530 of them or 44,95% paid the fare. The remaining people had free- ride certifications granted by the government. It means half of the customers use the public transport free of charge and the companies have to compensate the income gap with the subsidy from the government. From this perspective, if they have no possibility to run their businesses in accordance with the market principle, then they have a little to change in the service that they offer for the customers. Then who will take care of the customers who have to use public transport? Should they follow the others consider buying a vehicle contributing ever growing traffic congestion?

Conclusion

From the study it is clear that the public transportation system needs reform in terms of the operations. This should be done step by step addressing the most important issues such as customer care communication through providing a quality information service to benefit the customers and placing bus route time tables at the bus stations to give a reliable information on arrival and departure times from a certain stations. The simple way of making chances can be started from full utilization of glass boots placing time tables of buses stops by and updated route maps with directions. It will not only clear confusion of the customers as well as lessen trouble of the ticket persons to respond to asking directions or routes people standing at the bus stations. The customers will get more aware on the rough time of arrival of the buses and make the drivers to listen the customers.

Next, shifting from free-ride system into half price payment will be beneficial both for bus service companies but also for the improvement of the bus quality such as cleaning and hygiene.

References

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