Evaluation of the urban public transportation carried out by bus: an exploratory approach

Due to the arise of new forms of transportation, businessmen and governments that operate urban buses have been more and more interested in assessing the quality of transportation according to the users’ satisfaction. Since the users have experienced aspects related to categories that concern the transportation services, such as vehicles, roads/bus stops, service, time and values, they are able to evaluate the quality of transportation according to these categories. In this context, this article purposes a methodological approach for evaluating the public urban transport carried out by bus according to the users’ perception. Supported on seven dimensions of service quality, the resultant model is composed by 33 criteria which were organized into a questionnaire. In spite of the exploratory context of the study, the results showed that the proposed approach and the resultant model constitute a simple and viable tool for the analysis of the problem. We hope this model is able to aid managers in decision making processes