Identify Factors Affecting the Quality of Public Transport Service from the Perspective of Different Social Groups (The Case of Tehran-Mashhad Railway)

In order to decrease the growing trend car ownership precipitate, supporting public transport is an essential matter. Analyzing experimental data shows that increasing the level of offered services can be an effective way to increase supporting of public transport. Public transport users are divided in two groups: those who use public transport and own private car and those who use public transport but they don’t own private car. One of the main issues in travel demand management (TDM) is identifying and separating effective factors on service quality based on these two group’s viewpoint and following that, attracting and encouraging them for using these services. The question we follow to answer in this research is that, Is there a meaningful difference between these two groups in terms of effective factors on service quality of transport. In this research 26 factors for analyzing services quality of railway transport have been identified which by using factor analysis have been summarized and classified in 7 factors and then by using statistical tests between these two groups of users, a comparison has been made regarding effective factors on service quality. The results of this research show that there is no meaningful difference in the importance of each index of public transport in these two groups.