The Level Of Service Of Bus System In Universiti Putra Malaysia

Level of Service (LOS)

Rather than using the quantitative measures of students’ views, quality services also can be evaluated through qualitative approach of Level of Service (LOS) measures (Transportation Research Board, 2003). LOS could be applied in assessing the bus service performance to improve the quality, reliability, efficiency and effectiveness of the system (Zakiah, 2016).

The Student’s Satisfaction

In normal practice of passengers’ satisfaction level surveys, attributes such as waiting time, reliability, service information, comfort, travel time, convenience, safety, security, affordability and frequency of service are assessed (Ismail, Hafezi, Nor, & Ambak, 2012). The key component to know the satisfaction of passengers that will influence level of satisfaction on bus services include traffic supply, reliability and information, bus stop and bus design for comfort and enjoyment of passengers; staff skills, attitude and knowledge when dealing with passengers and safety issues (Fellesson & Friman, 2008).

The Quality of Bus Services at UPM

The performance of bus affects directly the level of service and safety to the students. No study has been done at UPM to identify the quality of bus services. The quality of service refers to the level of comfort during travel/ride, average network speed, and waiting time, walking distance to bus stop, journey times and reliability (Khorasani & Zeyun, 2014).

Assessment of Level Bus Services in UPM

In general, Malaysia public transport services are below the traveller’s expectation (Rohana, Ismah, & Anizalana, 2012). The current performance of bus services in UPM should be evaluated in order to know the efficiency and also effectiveness for the students’ need.

Low Level of Services Delivery

Poor quality of bus services will cause students to miss classes, waste time and discourage them to ride the bus services as at the same time due to discomfort such as tardiness of bus, unpleasant rides, issues on safety and unsupportive bus personnel (Hashim, Mohamad, Haron, Hassan, & Hassan, 2013).

Green Transportation System in University

The provisions to use campus bus services will help to ensure the greener environment through the reduction in private car users which usually caused congestion at the entrances and exits and along the campus roads (Rugayah, Shireen, Sabariah, & Farihah, 2013). This will help to reduce carbon footprint tremendously when the bus services is operated with a green concept (Rugayah et al., 2013), Greening the campus should be a shared responsibility where all stakeholders should take an active part in environmental care where one of the aspect was bus services.

Sampling Techniques and Strategies

Convenience sampling was employed at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor where N = 400 respondent from the total number of students 24,874.

On-Board Survey and Observation

Questionnaire was developed to identify passengers’ satisfaction and aspiration survey during the onboard survey. The questionnaire consists of four (4) parts which are general information, level of student’s satisfaction, level of bus service in UPM and the user aspiration. The on-board survey is conducted where the researcher was seated near to the front door. The questionnaire distributed during peak hours where the first trip is between 8.00 am to 10.00 am (morning peak), 12.00 pm to 2.00 pm (afternoon peak) and lastly 4.30 pm to 6.00 pm (evening peak). The observation took place at ten (10) bus stops in UPM.

Adaptation Level of Service (LOS) Measuring Quality Standard

The LOS assessment for fixed-route hour of service, frequency and bus speed were conducted using the adaptation of standard measurement in Table 01 , 02 and 03.

Source: cited in (Zakiah, 2016)

Demographic Profile of Respondent

Table 04 showed the distribution of questionnaire among the gender where male consists of 18.3% and female 81.8%. The differences in percentage among male and female were due the high number of captive riders being female passengers who lack access to other mode of transportation for example private vehicles (Krizek, Newport, White, & Townsed, 2007; Zakiah, 2016). Besides that, Noorfakhriah & Madzlan (2011) state that due the common behavior of male passengers that have high tendency not to respond towards the onboard survey compared to female.

Table 6 showed that most of the students tend to use bus services less than 5 times a week (43.3%) as only 6.5% of students used bus more than 16 times a week. The high number of users within the range less than 5 times a week was due to the location of the faculty. Each class was located within the walking distance and adjacently which make students tend to walk rather than waiting for the bus. In summary, UPM students tend to use bus services in order to reach educational nodes most of the time (Zakiah, 2016).

Trip Characteristic

Table 7 shows the respondents trip distribution during the semester. Through the findings, students tend to use bus services to reach their faculty had the highest number of users 80.5% due to the factor such as to going to the classes, appointments with the lecturers and most of the programmes held at the faculty itself. Second highest destination that becomes the main reason why student used bus as their main transportation was residential college, 60.5% where most of the students stayed within the campus especially first year students. As for the least popular destination among the students to reach by using bus was Banquet Hall (6.5%) because of the isolated location of the building with the main academic area and longer waiting time for bus services.

Table 07 present the results indicating that the highest waiting time was between 11 to 20 minutes, 39.0%. This was due to the number of bus provided by UPM had been reduced recently. The waiting time become longer because of the overcrowded users during peak hours rushing to classes.

Table 08 shows that the average time taken for the journey of bus to reach destination was below than 10 minutes (50.8%). Time consuming was in the lowest state due to the systematic traffic management especially during peak hours. As for the least percentage was 0.5% (more than 30 minutes) due to certain circumstances such as accidents or events held in the campus that cause traffic congestion.

Level of Service (LOS) Bus Services

Student’s Satisfaction Level toward Level of Bus Services

About 42.0% of the students were satisfied with the level of services provided by the bus in UPM. Only 2.8% states that there were extremely dissatisfied with the services which may due to longer waiting time, the attitude of bus drivers and the limited number of bus. Table 12 shows the evidence of satisfaction level among the students as the main users of bus in UPM.

Spearman Correlation test (Table 13 ) had been conducted in order to identify the relationship of student’s satisfaction with the level of bus services in UPM.

The result of spearman correlation show that there is a weak positive relationship between the level of student’s satisfaction and level of bus services in UPM (r = .303, p < .05). The correlation between the two variables indicates the association between the levels of students’ satisfaction with the level of bus service provided.