Fare Collection Management in government owned public bus transport of Addis Ababa
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Date
2021-04
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A.A.U
Abstract
Transportation is one of the most important sectors of country’s development. The sector is characterized by a shift in technology and knowledge. The experience of developed countries in the transport sector shows that institutional or operational excellence is important for maximizing the service quality and performance of the bus operators through improvement of bus Fare Collection Management (FCM). A major share of the revenue of a public transport operator comes through the collection of fares from its commuters and can be considered as “blood vessel” for them. The existing bus FCM in Addis Ababa is tedious, challenging in reconciliation and exposed to loss of revenue and the service rendered by the bus operators is not to the desired level and every year subsidized by hundreds-millions of birr by the city administration.
The objective of the paper was to study the existing fare collection management; specifically assessing its effectiveness and propose possible approaches to improve its service quality of government-owned public bus transport of Addis Ababa namely; Anbessa City Bus Service Enterprise (ACBSE) and Sheger Mass Transport Service Enterprise (SMTSE). The population and target group in this study was passengers and employees of ACBSE and SMTSE. Five dimensions of service quality attribute adapted from the European standard for public passenger transport service quality, EN13816 which provide to measure convenience and service quality in public transport. These are namely: customer care, information richness, comfort, security and environmental impact. This attributes were the independent variables, and on the other hand fare collection management service quality was the dependent variable. Structured questionnaire, semi-structured interview and field observation utilized as an instrument for data collection. The questioner was distributed to 385 passengers with response rate of 96% and the semi-structured interview was conducted for staffs of the two bus operators. A quantitative study with explanatory research design and stratified probability sampling was used and SPSS version 23 software was utilized to analyze descriptive and inferential statistics to see the effect and the relationship of each dimension on fare collection management service quality. The collected analysis showed that all the independent variables has a positive and has a significant relationship with service quality. Standalone ticketing system and limited data, unsatisfied customer, institutional setup challenges, revenue loss, lack of fare policy, and financial and technical constraint in improving the FCM were the major findings and this issues shall be addressed by indorsing technology and strategic solutions and support to achieve an improved operationally excellent operator by enhancing the service quality of FCM.
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Keywords
Fare Collection Management, Operational excellence