Performance Evaluation of Anbessa City Bus Based on Quality of Service: The Case of Bethel to Merkato Route
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Public transportation in Addis Ababa has been dominated by city bus services provided by the few bus
enterprises, taxis operated by private sectors and Light Rail Transit. Walking is also major mode of
transport for a significant number of city residences. Despite the role of LRT, buses and mini-bus taxis as
the major public transport system, the overall urban mobility in Addis has been characterized as chaotic,
unreliable, unsafe, unaffordable and inefficient for a fast-expanding city. Public transportation has
influential role in the quality of life individually and the productivity of entire regions in every society
through generating inter or intra regions or city connections during urbanization. Cities with poor public
transport are characterized by suppressed social and economic advantages. However, providing a reliable,
efficient and quality transportation service to the people is a challenging operation to the service provider.
Since its establishment, Anbessa City Enterprise has passed through many ups and downs to improve and
expand its transportation service in general. It has got major improvement so far. Yet, the enterprise could
not be able to address the required quality and the ever-increasing transportation demand in and around
the city of Addis Ababa. Hence, the Anbessa city bus service operation requires a continuous performance
assessment for efficient and proper utilization of buses to serve the current and future customers’ demand.
As a result, any intervention in this regard cannot be fruitful unless the current level of performance and
the gap in quality of service is identified scientifically. The objective of this research is therefore to evaluate
performance of Anbessa city bus based on quality of service specifically along the Bethel-Merkato route.
To evaluate performance of Anbessa bus along this route, indicators regarding quality of service were
identified from different literatures and discussed under literature review section of the research. Identified
quality-of-service indicators are service availability, service frequency, trip time, service reliability,
comfort, safety and security, cleanliness, fare, information and customer care. Two methods were
developed to analyze the study. The first method was customer satisfaction index (CSI), this method
analyzed overall customer satisfaction rate of the service by calculating quality-of-service indicators
importance rates and satisfaction rates of 351 respondents. The second method was Common Values for
the Performance Indicators; this method analyzed expected level of service quality to be delivered from the
view point of different expected average performance levels. Based on the analysis the first method results
identified, the service is about 53.2% successful in satisfying its customers, which indicates low result in
satisfying its users. The second result also showed that, quality of service along this route is below average
in some attributes and average in the rest. Further studies are needed to develop standard performance
evaluation indicators at city and level and evaluation of Anbessa bus performance from service provider’s
perspective.
Description
Keywords
Performance,, indicators, Indexes,, customer satisfaction, importance rates, satisfaction rate