A dissertation Submitted to the School of Business as Partial Condition for Fulfilment of the
Requirement for the Award of Master Degree of Business Administration in Corporate
Management (MBA-CM) of Mzumbe University
Among of the solutions for sustainable transportation especially in urban areas is through
provision of public transportation with high services quality that satisfies and fulfils more
wide range of different customers’ needs and expectations in order to keep and attract more
passengers. Hence, in order for BRT operation to be part of solution with sustainability in
terms of their operation and to ensure investment payback the concept of customer
satisfaction for large buses customers must be studied. As for such reason this study was
designed to assess customers’ satisfaction from large buses services in Urban Public
Transportation with emphasis on; effects of service quality dimensions on customers’
satisfaction, to determine the operational performances in terms of buses departure
frequency, degree of customers’ satisfaction and service attributes of buses that must be
improved in future.
This cross-sectional study used quantitative approach and included two hundred and
thirteen respondents who were obtained through convenience technique who responded to
on-board questionnaire survey; while stratified random sampling technique was used to
obtain two large buses (Abood and BM) which were subjected to observation. Moreover,
descriptive analysis was the statistical technique used in data analysis with aid of statistical
package known as SPSS version 16.0.
The study findings revealed that the satisfaction rate of passengers was high whereby,
Abood passengers were more satisfied compared to BM passengers, in case of operational
performances. Abood buses were departing on time with average time difference of 30.5
minutes between their buses compared to 38.5 minutes of BM. and Also the following
attributes were recommended for improvement as they had least satisfaction to
respondents; punctuality, ticketing and bus fair and trustworthiness among bus officials.
Basing on the study findings, satisfaction had shown positive relationship with operational
performances of large buses as Abood had more travelled buses compared to BM.
Therefore, the study recommends the improvement of buses’ services quality dimensions
for buses operators to realize progressive profit and attract more customers.