Assessment of the satisfaction of Bus passengers in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract
Increased population results in an increase in travel demand. Greater road length and construction of new roads result in faster and longer travels and increase car ownership, which contributes to increased traffic congestion and pollution. The bus form of travel is a critical component of resolving this issue. A bus can carry 30-40 passenger per trip on the other hand a private car carries 2-3 passengers per trip. So, bus transport could decrease the number of vehicles in road if it can provide better service quality in bus mode. In this experiment, the main objectives are to better understand overall passengers’ satisfaction in bus transport in Uttara-Gazipur route and predict the individual factors contributing to the comfort of the bus modes in this route. To evaluate this result, a questionnaire survey form was created with about 19 service quality parameters such as safe speed, temperature, noise, required time, waiting time for bus, station service, seat comfort service, cleanness, staff behaviour, payment system fare. In this experiment, opinions of 100 passengers were collected regarding the service quality. Data were analyzed using descriptive and multiple linear regression, analyzed by SPSS software. One main finding reported that passengers are not satisfied yet with bus service quality. This study revealed that 75% of feedback was poor or very poor, and 25% of feedback was positive or good regarding the level of satisfaction for bus mode. The regression analysis reported that the overall P-value is less than 0.05 and the regression coefficient, R2 is 0.64, which rejected the null hypothesis and makes the survey significant to assess the overall comfort of passengers traveling with bus in Uttara-Gazipur route. It was also found that three parameters: reliability (ẞ = 0.170, P=0.027), safe speed (ẞ = 0.240, P = 0.021) and travel time (ẞ = 0.320, P = 0.01) are individually contributing to overall satisfaction of passenger in Uttara-Gazipur route.