A hybrid approach based on SERVQUAL and fuzzy TOPSIS for evaluating transportation service quality

Managing service quality is vital to retain customer satisfaction and augment revenues for any business organization. Often it is difficult to assess service quality due to lack of quantifiable measures and limited data. In this paper, we present a hybrid approach based on SERVQUAL and fuzzy TOPSIS for evaluating service quality of urban transportation systems. The proposed approach consists of three steps. The first step involves development of a SERVQUAL based questionnaire to collect data for measuring transportation service quality. The participants provide linguistic assessments to rate the service quality criteria and the alternatives. In step 2, the linguistic ratings are combined through fuzzy TOPSIS to generate an overall performance score for each alternative. The alternative with the highest score is finally chosen. In step 3, sensitivity analysis is conducted to evaluate the influence of criteria weights on the decision making process. The strength of the proposed approach is its practical applicability and ability to provide solution under partial or lack of quantitative information. An application of the proposed approach for evaluation of service quality of metro in Montreal is provided. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.