UNDERSTANDING USERS’ PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY OF RAILWAY STATION : A CASE STUDY OF NAKHON RATCHASIMA
Keywords:
Railway station, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, PerceptionAbstract
Regarding punctuality and highly safe mode lead, rail transports become popular. Currently, in several countries traveling by train has been widely employed, resulting in the development in various aspects and motivating people to use more rail transports. Despite a long train service operation in Thailand, the number of passengers continually and evidently decreased every year. The aforementioned issue may be caused by insufficient improvement and development of railway stations. Therefore, the factors that potentially influence railway stations’ service perception should be refined in order to provide effective strategies and policies to increase rail transport’s passengers. In this study, 370 trains users with 18 indicators were collected to seek insight into the factors that influenced service quality perception. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were applied in this study. The finding reveals that indicators are classified into 3 factors, namely, Service, Safety and Facilities, and Information factor. These 3 factors had an ability to significantly measure service quality perception toward railway stations. In addition, safety and facilities were found as the major factor affecting service quality perception with β=0.988. The findings may be used as a potential guideline for attracting passengers’ demand, developing strategies and policies to build better service quality including facilities lead to enhance the good image of railway stations in Thailand.
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