New service model for railway business as a ‘social infrastructure service’: new service value creation model using SLA concept

Abstract

Social infrastructures are very popular for many people and are repeatedly used in their daily lives. The discussion on social infrastructures as services is less popular than that as systems. We think that social infrastructures are also services because they provide users with something of value. Customers usually use social infrastructures without considering them thoroughly as services because social infrastructures exist just like air does. Therefore, customers' values for social infrastructures are “invisible” from service providers in social infrastructure services. Many social infrastructures are provided by private companies in Japan. Therefore, providers should identify customers' values to increase their satisfaction. First, we explain the difficulty of applying existing service theories to social infrastructure “services” in this paper. This is because major service theories deal with either enhanced supplementary services or direct interaction between staff and customers, although both situations are rare in social infrastructure services.