Study of bus crew behavior and user complaints

Abstract

Efficiency, public acceptance and user satisfaction of bus service is largely dependent on the behavior of bus crew. Hence, it is the responsibility of the authorities to identify deficiencies and take necessary action to improve the situation. This study focus on analyzing data collected by National Transport Commission on bus crew behavior by Monitoring and Enforcement, Investigation and public complaint handling units. Information available was divided into two categories as violations and complaints. Violations are the detection taken by the flying squads of National transport Commission and provincial authorities. Complaints are made by the general public about the crew behavior and bus operation. It is identified violations can be categorized into 31 different offences and there are 08 different categories of complaints. It is found that on average long distance buses (route lengths over 50 km) are more responsible for violations as well as complaints as compared to short distance (route length less than 50 km). Employing unregistered crew is the most frequent violation that amount to nearly 30% of the total. Discourtesy towards passengers and charging higher fair are the two main complaints received that contribute to nearly 86% of the complaints. It is also found that majority of the detected buses have less than 2 violations during a given year but there are few buses that have received over 5 violations during a given year. Violations and complaints are also analyses according to the service type, bus route and corridor of operation. It is found that highest numbers of both permit condition violations and public complaints are reported from bus route nO.02 of Colombo - Galle, Matara.