Railway Service Quality Research Articles

Evaluation of Indian Railway’s Supply Chain Parameters for Improved Sustainability Under Industry 4.0 Transformation: An Application of AHP and TOPSIS

Indian Railways (IR) is India’s major public transportation system and one of the world’s largest and busiest rail networks. The Indian government is in charge of owning and running it. This paper presents an alternative approach to measuring the overall operational performance of the Indian Railway supply chain. The operation of Indian railways from a supply chain perspective needs to be analyzed to improve customer service and inventory management.Industry 4.0 is used for the easy processing of individual transportation components efficiently and safely. The study is useful for the Indian Railways because it enables the classification of various issues related to government procurement. A supply chain model is proposed to assess service expectations and quality. Various issues (such as the integration system, financial behavior, and management perspective) related to supply chain management have been identified, and various factors affecting availability, railway service quality, and reliability have been analyzed for managing its supply chain. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and TOPSIS have been used to examine inventory-related difficulties and make recommendations for the public procurement environment. The result of the AHP method showed that Model 1 (Integration System) has the highest Max_C_weight of 0.5348, followed by Model 2 (Financial Behavior, 0.381695) and Model 3 (Management Perspective, 0.399443). The consistency ratio (CR) for all three models was also less than 0.1. Further, the TOPSIS method was used to validate the accuracy of AHP results and found that the model is significant. This result will help the decision-makers at Indian Railways design an assessment and relationship management model that will help them make procurement the driving force behind their supply chain.As per COP27, Industry 4.0 will help to achieve net zero emissions. The net carbon emissions will be reduced to zero, which will result in a clean environment.To improve sustainability within the framework of the Industry 4.0 transition, the research aimed to evaluate the Indian Railway’s supply chain metrics. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) are methodologies used in this assessment.

A Study of the Impact of the Use of Real-Time Crowding Information on the Perceived Service Quality of High-Speed Rail by Passengers with Unfixed-Seat Tickets

Unfixed-seat tickets are one of the supplementary forms of tickets used when the transport capacity of high-speed rail is insufficient; however, the needs of passengers with unfixed-seat tickets are often neglected. To understand the influence of unfixed-seat tickets on passengers’ perception of the quality of high-speed rail service, including their satisfaction, this study takes the provision of real-time crowding information (RTCI) as the independent variable and the satisfaction of passengers with unfixed-seat tickets with the quality of the high-speed rail service as the dependent variable, and adds social anxiety as a moderating variable, to construct a model. We conducted experiments and gathered data through questionnaires. The results showed that the implementation of RTCI has a significant impact on the satisfaction levels about high-speed railway service quality. In comparison to scenarios without RTCI or with RTCI failure, successful RTCI implementation can significantly enhance user satisfaction. Additionally, the moderating effect of social anxiety is significant. Perceived satisfaction did not significantly differ for individuals with low social anxiety in the absence of RTCI or in cases where RTCI failed; however, for individuals with high social anxiety, perceived satisfaction was significantly lower when RTCI failed compared to the No-RTCI condition. The potential practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Service Quality in Rail Systems: Listen to the Voice of Social Media

Service quality is essential to increase and maintain user loyalty to the railway system. In the literature, surveys have been used to measure user satisfaction, and mathematical methods have been applied to quantify the survey results. In recent years, user-generated content, including comments and complaints shared via social media, has been used to measure the quality of rail services. This content may provide important insights into the quality of the service provided with its dynamic structure. In this study, a SERVQUAL-based social-media analytics approach is used to measure railway service quality, placing special emphasis on the temporal variations in a national rail system. Topic modeling was used to assign each content item to the relevant service dimension and sentiment analysis was applied to measure the level of satisfaction. Importance–performance analysis was employed at the final stage to generate policy suggestions. Gathering more than 2.3 million social-media messages posted from 2011 to 2021, we examined the temporal evolution of service quality of the Turkish rail system. The results reveal the most and least important services and the satisfaction level of each dimension. The differences between the priorities of conventional and high-speed rail passengers are defined, and policy recommendations are presented.

Perception of commuter rail transit riders/users of train services on the Accra-Nsawam Corridor

ABSTRACT Commuter trains are a popular mode of transportation among low-income earners in Ghana. However, due to the economic turmoil of the 1970s, the government struggled to invest in and manage this travel option effectively. With the increasing trend towards mass commuter services worldwide, this study aimed to examine how commuters perceive the quality of railway services in Ghana, using the Accra-Nsawam corridor as a case study. The study involved an on-board survey of 430 passengers using questionnaires. The results showed that factors such as speed, punctuality, safety, comfort, and improved customer care were significant predictors of commuters’ preference for commuter services. However, variables such as advanced technology and ticketing systems were found to be less important. The study recommends expanding rail services to other parts of the country while simultaneously improving technology.

Risk identification methodology regarding the safety and quality of railway services

Abstract The paper deals with the implementation of a modified FMEA methodology according to the EU Commission Regulation no. 402/13 on a common safety method for risk assessment and evaluation in the railway sector. The basic goal is to create a methodology for risk identification regarding the safety of services in railway transport concerning railway crossings. Reason for this research was the fact that the manager of the railway infrastructure in Slovakia has problems related to accidents at railway crossings including problems with the quality of services when trains are delayed. Based on previous research, this area has been defined as a priority for risk identification. Accidents at level crossings are often the result of complex interactions between several factors. The results of the authors’ long-term research bring direct impact on the safety and quality of rail transport services. The first effect of the research is a detailed investigation of the causes of accidents, on which the new methodology is based. This is important because understanding the causes of accidents is the first step in eliminating them. The proposed new framework of the methodology provides guidance to the railway infrastructure manager on how to identify, analyze, evaluate and eliminate the risks of their effects.

Assessing the Service Quality Attributes Affecting the Satisfaction of the Northern Railway Passengers: An Empirical Study

The present study aims to assess the intangible attributes of the service that have an impact on customer satisfaction. The Intangible attributes attached to the service, are difficult to determine. The Indian Railway network is one of the largest railway networks in the world. It is spread over 115,000 km having 21,617 passenger trains carrying 23 million passengers every day. In terms of revenue generation, it is a major contributor to the Indian economy but even then, the service level is very poor as compared to the other parts of the world. Due to increased competition in the modes of transportation, the Service attributes of Indian Railway acts as a strong influencer on Passenger Satisfaction. Indian Railways has a huge potential in terms of economic benefits if their service quality is improved. Various studies have tried to identify the important attributes regarding the Service Quality of Indian Railway. The SERVQUAL model provided important insights into the service attributes. The study attempts to identify the gap that exists in the service level, that is, service offered by the Indian Railway and expectation of the customers. In the study, only internal aspects like facilities (attributes) which make the journey comfortable and the absence of these attributes makes the passengers’ journey uncomfortable are included. The result indicates that there exists a considerable gap in Reliability and Assurance dimensions of Railway service quality and the most important factors determining satisfaction of passengers are basic facilities, safety and security, cleanliness and employee behaviour towards passengers.

A closed form railway line delay propagation model

Railway service quality can be measured by the aggregate delay over a time horizon due to an event that delays a given train. Timetables for railway services may dampen delay propagations to subsequent trains by adding either supplement time or buffer time to the timetable. The evaluation of these variables is often performed by time consuming analysis with simulation software, or other complex, time-consuming calculations. This paper proposes instead an analytical closed form formulation of aggregate delay, which offers theoretical insights into railway delays and managerial insight into the properties of timetables at an aggregate level, and which may function as a fast sub-algorithm for timetable evaluations in larger optimization and transport models. Analysis of the function recommends a restraint in the utilization of timetable supplement and buffer, as their delay-damping effect decreases with their magnitude. Further, the effect of different threshold values in delay measurement is demonstrated, giving information valuable to the design of service contracts. Numerical analysis of a common suburban railway line shows that the polynomial function provides guidance and insight even when theoretical assumptions are violated.

Service quality of railway services in Kashmir division

Service quality of railway services in Kashmir division

Optimizing Waiting Room Utilization in High Speed Railway Stations Based on an Information Integration Approach

The setting of railway station waiting room and waiting zones relates to passengers' feeling and satisfaction. In this article, the authors develop an optimization model for railway station waiting room assignment, as well as considering adjustment of platforms. With four types of improvement strategies: zone optimization, room optimization, time optimization and interactive priority policy, this optimal model aims to effectively and efficiently improve the railway service quality and security.

Hierarchical framework for coordinate optimization of train timetable and electric motor train unit circulation plan

To meet the increasing demand for improving railway service quality while using the precious mobile resources reasonably and economically, this research proposes a hierarchical approach that integrates the model for constructing an efficient electric motor train unit circulation plan into the model for optimized timetable design without predefining timetable details. A simulated annealing algorithm for solving the timetabling (main) model is designed, in which the neighborhood system is pretreated. A special tree construction–based branch-and-bound algorithm is improved for solving the electric motor train unit circulation planning (sub)model. The results of the numerical experiment verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Specifically, compared to the randomly generated initial solution, the optimal solution obtained by the proposed methods reduces the total travel time by 686 min and reduces the number of electric motor train units by 5. The number of electric motor train units needed by the proposed method is on average at least two less than the method that handles the problem in a sequential way. Railway operators can implement this approach for balancing the efficiency of timetable and the quality of electric motor train unit circulation plan within a reasonable computation time when scheduling trains in railways.

Railway service quality in northern Italy: A multilevel synthetic assessment

In order to reasonably assess the railway service quality, a multilevel extensible assessment model is proposed based on the matter element theory and the extension theory. The proposed model is applied to a real case study of some railway lines. The matter element to assess the railway service quality is established on the basis of the characteristics of passenger transit which included 7 primary assessment indices and 26 senior assessment indices. The index weights are determined by the passengers who were interviewed on board during their journey. Railway service quality is assessed by the values of the correlation degree of the matter element with all the assessment grades. The multilevel extensible assessment method can fully reflect the distance between the overall railway service quality or one kind of service attribute and the assessment grades and then it can realize the continuous assessment. The method can provide not only the passengers’ overall satisfaction degree on the railway service quality but also the passengers’ satisfaction degree on one assessment index.

A Study on Urban Railway Service Quality by Technology Acceptance Model

A Study on Urban Railway Service Quality by Technology Acceptance Model

Multilevel Comprehensive Evaluation of the Railway Service Quality

A multilevel fuzzy synthetic evaluation model to evaluate the railway service quality is proposed based on the fuzzy theory. An evaluation indicator system with three grades evaluation indicators is established, and their weights are determined on the basis of opinions expressed by interviewed passengers. Railway service quality is evaluated by the value of a comprehensive satisfaction degree. The method can provide not only for the passengers’ overall satisfaction degree on the railway service quality, but also the passengers’ satisfaction degree on some primary evaluation indicators. According to the evaluation results, we found interesting differences of perception of the service among the users.

IPA 분석을 이용한 도시철도 서비스품질의 고객만족도 분석

이 연구는 지방자체단체에서 운영 중인 전국의 도시철도(경전철 포함) 서비스 이용고객에게 더 나은 맞춤형 서비스 품질을 제공하여 고객만족도를 향상에 의한 수송수요를 창출하고 또한 경영수익을 창출하고자 하였다. 정부재정사업 도시철도와 민간투자사업도시철도에 대한 서비스 이용 전과 이용 후의 기대도와 인식도에 대한 평균값 차이의 유효성을 검정한 결과 정부재정사업도시철도는 18개 항목에서 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났으며(p<.01), 반면에 2개 항목은 기대도와 인식도간에 유의한 차이를 보이지 않았으며(p>.05), 민간투자사업도시철도는 20개 항목 모두가 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났다(p<.001). 그리고 IPA분석결과 서비스품질의 중점개선항목이 도출되었다. 이 연구결과는 만성적자인 도시철도(경전철 포함) 운영기업에 대한 맞춤형서비스품질을 제공하여 고객만족도 향상과 경영수익 창출을 위한 경영전략의 단초를 제공하는데 큰 의의가 있다. The purpose of this study is to prioritize the importance of urban railway service quality through statistical analysis. This was done to maximize customer satisfaction by providing customers of urban railway services (including LRT), operated by the local government, with a better customized service quality. It was hoped that this project would boost the need for public transportation by increasing customer satisfaction, which would eventually lead to more profitable revenue. The results of validity certification of expectations and perceptions before and after the use of government funded urban railway and private sector invested urban railways show that there are gaps for 18 items for the government funded urban rail projects (p<.01), while there is no significant difference for 2 items between expectation and perception (p>.05); private sector invested urban railway projects show differences for all 20 items (p<.001). Therefore, IPA analysis is conducted to improve the service quality; this should lead to a remedy that focuses on service quality. The findings of this study will contribute to providing management strategies for boosting customer satisfaction and creating revenue through customized service quality in the urban railway operating industry (including LRT), which is currently suffering from chronic deficits.

1E22 Energy-Saving Schedule Design by Installing Optimized Rapid Service in DC-Electric Railways(Environment and Energy)

DC-Electric railways offer advantages in convenience, mass transportation performance, and being a green form of transport. In this paper, a rapid train service is considered for improving the quality of railway services and providing an eco-friendly performance. The main consideration of this study is the installation of a rapid service in a line without passing tracks, which effectively improves the total traveling time of passengers, and saves energy through greater efficiency. In order to install a rapid service in a conventional schedule that consists only of local train stops, one of two timetables is chosen to be replaced by a rapid service. The passing stations for a rapid service are determined with the use of mixed integer programming, which is a method of mathematical optimization. For this calculation, a sectional flow of passengers is analyzed, and a discrete origin and destination (OD) table is proposed. The resulting optimized timetable is presented, where unpopular stations are not necessary chosen as a passing station, because this calculation is based on the sectional flow of passengers. This means that the passing stations should be determined through an analysis of the OD table, rather than the number of passengers that board or alight. Finally, the consumption of energy is compared between local trains and rapid trains that use optimized scheduling. Running curves are calculated in each case, and the energy saved through the efficiency of rapid trains is shown to be 24.7%. This is because the amount of accelerating and decelerating time is reduced. This energy saving will be increased if the number of passengers who use the rapid trains increases.

The Impact of Rail Transport on Real Estate Prices

A hedonic pricing model is estimated based on sales data from three metropolitan areas in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Enschede) to analyse the effect of railway accessibility on house prices. Railway accessibility is measured by both the distance to a railway station and an index of quality of railway services provided at the station. Two railway station considerations were taken: the nearest railway station and the most frequently chosen railway station. Correcting for a wide range of other determinants, the model based on the most frequently chosen station outperforms the model based on the nearest railway station in estimating the effect of railway accessibility. The dissimilarity between the results of the two models increases with the increase in the urbanisation level of the metropolitan area.

INCREASE OF CAPACITY THROUGH OPTIMIZED TIMETABLING

The throughput of track infrastructure and the quality of railway services can be enhanced by a set of intelligent scheduling measures provided that the timetable design takes the variations of real operations sufficiently into account. Small variations of the train running and dwell times are currently compensated for by mainly based on rules of thumb, sometimes checked by simulation. This paper will discuss the current methods to estimate the characteristic timetable variables as minimal time headway, slack and waiting time. A new stochastic approach is presented for the estimation of blocking times and buffer times at bottlenecks based on distributions of the start and of blocking time waves of trains, which aims at reflecting the interaction between trains following each other on saturated routes.

Remote condition monitoring and validation of railway points

After recent railway tragedies in the UK, the condition of the railway infrastructure has become a matter of rising concern, focusing on railway safety and the optimal management of railway maintenance. Recent developments in microelectronics and IT make possible low-cost, high-quality condition monitoring for trackside equipment, to reduce the likelihood of breakdown and to enhance railway service quality.

How can the quality of rail services in Tokyo be further improved?

This study aims to examine the preconditions that affect quality of railway services in Tokyo and its policy implications. Objective evaluation of quality of services makes it clear that further investment to improve them is necessary in the future, and that passengers are willing to pay for it. However, some classic features of railways in Tokyo hinder improvement. Particularly, their organisational structure, characterised as territorial fragmentation, makes it difficult to internalise the external ‘network’ effect and maximise user benefits on a metropolitan scale. Therefore, transport policy needs to transform railway organisations such that they make further investments efficiently from a social cost/benefit point of view. Further, it is also essential to devise new methodologies to stimulate service promotion of railways as a private business, including financial support for investment and organisational transformation.

Modern Procedures for the Definition of Safety and Availability Requirements

Up to now the definition of technical reliability of railway components had been always a compromise between the possible technical state of the art, the desired degree of railway service quality and economical reasons but there had been missing defined procedures for the definition of reliability parameters linking the operational requirements to technical units which can be used for the development of new systems by industry. The following article describes the new procedures, their advantages and impacts on the system specifications process.