ESTIMATING THE PERCEIVED QUALITY OF TRANSPORT SERVICE: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL APPROACHES

Abstract

The article discusses conceptual approaches to defining the perceived quality of transport service, rendered by public transport in the city of Moscow, in particular by rail transport, such as the underground, the Moscow central ring and local trains. The authors put forward their own definition of the notion of perceived quality of transport service. They analyze key indicators of the transport service quality, the two- and four-stage model of its quality and the five-stage model of service marketing, which can be adapted to services of in-city rail transport. Special attention is paid by organizers of passenger transit to the development of public transport in Moscow in general, as well as to raising quality of service by all types of transport, including rail one. Both technical approach and advanced technology of management (intellectual systems used for planning and organization of transit) are used to do it. However, the marketing approach (or studying the perceived quality of transport service) has not been investigated well enough. It provides an opportunity not only to assess the quality of service rendering processes, which is important, but also to conduct mass research of transport service customers in order to find out their attitude to the quality of service by certain comfort parameters, safety, information supply, etc.