Measuring Customer Reservation Price for Maintenance, Repair and Operations of the Metro Public Transport System in Qatar

Abstract

Getting to know the price that users assign to maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) has arisen as an essential consideration in gathering financial sustainability for metro public transport systems. The current research reveals customer reservation price for MRO in the main metro stations in Qatar. The purpose of the present work is to assess the willingness to pay for MRO services in eight metro stations in Doha in order to have a better understanding of user preferences. Qualitative research was carried out employing primary and secondary source of information. Primary data was collected by means of a mixture of data accumulation approaches: key informant meetings and focus-group conversations. Secondary data was collected from the account books, contracts, recordings of trans-actions, statements of work and activity reports given by the local rail committees. A stated preference investigation was applied through open text format questions to more than 1000 customers, and a Poisson regression model was used to evaluate the considerations affecting every higher value. Outputs reveal normal customer reservation prices per month and per train journey. The results also indicate a significant willingness to pay differential among the studied railway stations. The study of the decisive considerations elicits that the degree to which the MRO service can exclude paying consumers, the attending of rail conferences and the possibility of using another rail station are related with the customer reservation price. The outputs of this research are significant for railway public authorities willing to set up reasonable, adequate and realistic fares that support fund competent railway systems in Qatar.