An Empirical Study of Passengers’ Perceived Satisfaction with Monorail Service Quality: Case of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to examine passengers’ perceived satisfaction with a monorail system by determining the factors that dominated their perception. For this study, 417 data points were collected through face-to-face questionnaire surveys in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 20 September 2019 to 10 December 2019. The study involved the use of several assessments to ascertain how the perceived satisfaction of passengers with the monorail service was influenced. The tests predicted which service factors fuelled this satisfaction and included an exploratory factor analysis, Spearman’s correlation test and an artificial neural network (ANN) model (termed the multilayer perceptron neural networks model) with a feed-forward backpropagation algorithm. The findings that were produced by these methods of analysing factors revealed the extraction of eight service-quality features as the key influences on the perceived satisfaction of passengers. The correlation test results revealed that these factors have a significant and positive relationship with perceived satisfaction. Finally, the ANN model with the optimum neuron number in the hidden layer is seven neurons. This model found that the dominant service quality factors that contributed to influencing passengers’ perceived satisfaction levels were (i) the provision of information, (ii) facilities, (iii) signage. The results of this study will benefit service providers, policymakers and planners in formulating effective strategies to enhance passengers’ satisfaction with the monorail service and increase the ridership.