CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY OF THE BUS RAPID TRANSIT (BRT) SERVICE IN LAGOS

Abstract

Many metropolitan cities in developing countries currently face an urban mass transit transport gap. Some transportation authorities in these cities introduced the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service along the major routes to overcome this gap. Commuters’ satisfaction usually determines the success of a mass transit scheme based on assessing various satisfaction parameters. In this regard, high customer satisfaction is one of the main reasons why several cities worldwide have adopted BRT to solve the problem of mass transit. Therefore, this study, contextualized on the Ikorodu-TBS corridor in the Lagos state of Nigeria, examined the satisfaction of BRT commuters compared to that of other bus types to determine whether there are any significant differences. To test commuters' satisfaction, a Likert-scale questionnaire was distributed to 500 users of BRT and other bus types of which 472 completed the survey. Respondents were asked to identify their level of satisfaction. Responses were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis H Test. The results showed that significant differences exist. Subsequently, pairwise comparisons were performed using Dunn’s (1964) procedure with a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons which revealed that while the difference between BRT and other bus types was significant in some cases, it was not in other cases, suggesting that the state needs to work diligently to improve the areas of weakness identified by the study. By testing for the significant difference between the various satisfaction variables between BRT and other bus types, this study established that, indeed, there are. The study revealed that from the post hoc test the BRT does not yet have the desired level of satisfaction among commuters whose perceptions suggest significant differences in their transportation experience between the BRT and the other transport service operators. This implies that even though the performance of BRT is remarkable in some cases, there is a need to improve in other areas such as price in order for BRT to fulfill the primary purpose - affordability and accessibility- for which it was established.