IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/pubtra/v17y2025i1d10.1007_s12469-024-00367-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scaling up public transport usage: a systematic literature review of service quality, satisfaction and attitude towards bus transport systems in developing countries

Author

Listed:
  • Eugene Sogbe

    (Monash University Malaysia)

  • Susilawati Susilawati

    (Monash University Malaysia)

  • Tan Chee Pin

    (Monash University Malaysia)

Abstract

Urban sprawl driven by urbanisation has contributed to a sharp rise in privately owned vehicles and competition for restricted resource space. The utilisation of private vehicles has increased, particularly in developing countries, and this phenomenon leads to many negative externalities, including traffic congestion and emissions. To encourage the use of sustainable modes such as public transport, it is essential for policymakers and transport authorities to carefully examine the determinants influencing public transport usage and apply successful policies and procedures. This review offers a valuable understanding of the contemporary knowledge regarding the determinants influencing bus transport usage. It systematically reviews 104 papers published since 2000 on service quality, satisfaction, and attitudes towards bus transport. The review shows that safety, security, comfort, reliability and accessibility are the most substantial determinants shaping users' views on service quality and satisfaction. This is particularly evident in situations like waiting at the bus stop, being on board the bus, and specific instances while walking to their destination. The results indicate that challenges with first-mile and last-mile connectivity are apparent, and further exploration in the context of developing countries is needed to understand these challenges, necessitating further investigation. It also demonstrates instrumental aspects such as convenience and social-symbolic aspects such as social standing, influencing attitudes towards public transport usage. It concludes by suggesting potential paths for future research and discusses the impacts of the results on policy decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Eugene Sogbe & Susilawati Susilawati & Tan Chee Pin, 2025. "Scaling up public transport usage: a systematic literature review of service quality, satisfaction and attitude towards bus transport systems in developing countries," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-44, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:pubtra:v:17:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s12469-024-00367-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s12469-024-00367-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12469-024-00367-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12469-024-00367-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Medi YARMEN & Sik SUMAEDI, 2016. "Perceived Service Quality of Youth Public Transport Passengers," Transport Problems, Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Transport, vol. 11(1), pages 99-111, March.
    2. Jiancheng Weng & Xiaojian Di & Chang Wang & Jingjing Wang & Lizeng Mao, 2018. "A Bus Service Evaluation Method from Passenger’s Perspective Based on Satisfaction Surveys: A Case Study of Beijing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-15, August.
    3. Nguyen-Phuoc, Duy Q. & Phuong Tran, Anh Thi & Nguyen, Tiep Van & Le, Phuong Thi & Su, Diep Ngoc, 2021. "Investigating the complexity of perceived service quality and perceived safety and security in building loyalty among bus passengers in Vietnam – A PLS-SEM approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 162-173.
    4. SINGH Sanjay, 2016. "Assessment Of Passenger Satisfaction With Public Bus Transport Services: A Case Study Of Lucknow City (India)," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 11(3), pages 107-128, December.
    5. Md. Nazmul Huda Naim & Mohammed Sarfaraz Gani Adnan & Ashraf Dewan & Khatun E. Zannat, 2022. "Assessing the performance of public transport services in a developing country: A case study using data envelopment analysis," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 377-409, March.
    6. Agyeman, Stephen & Cheng, Lin, 2020. "Analysis of barriers to perceived service quality in Ghana: Students’ perspectives on bus mobility attributes," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 63-85.
    7. Redman, Lauren & Friman, Margareta & Gärling, Tommy & Hartig, Terry, 2013. "Quality attributes of public transport that attract car users: A research review," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 119-127.
    8. Md Hadiuzzman & Tanmay Das & Md Mehedi Hasnat & Sanjana Hossain & Sarder Rafee Musabbir, 2017. "Structural equation modeling of user satisfaction of bus transit service quality based on stated preferences and latent variables," Transportation Planning and Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 257-277, April.
    9. Allen, Jaime & Muñoz, Juan Carlos & Ortúzar, Juan de Dios, 2019. "Understanding public transport satisfaction: Using Maslow's hierarchy of (transit) needs," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 75-94.
    10. Dennis van Soest & Miles R. Tight & Christopher D. F. Rogers, 2020. "Exploring the distances people walk to access public transport," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 160-182, March.
    11. Noor, Shamim & Iamtrakul, Pawinee, 2023. "Women's access to urban public transport: Toward addressing policy constraints in combating sexual harassment," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 14-22.
    12. Zahwa Al-Ayyash & Maya Abou-Zeid, 2019. "Investigating commute satisfaction differences of private car users and public transport users in a developing country context," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 515-536, June.
    13. Yu, Le & Xie, Binglei & Chan, Edwin H.W., 2019. "Exploring impacts of the built environment on transit travel: Distance, time and mode choice, for urban villages in Shenzhen, China," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 57-71.
    14. Sajjakaj Jomnonkwao & Chinnakrit Banyong & Supanida Nanthawong & Thananya Janhuaton & Vatanavongs Ratanavaraha & Thanapong Champahom & Pornsiri Jongkol, 2022. "Perceptions of Parents of the Quality of the Public Transport Services Used by Children to Commute to School," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-20, October.
    15. Taru Saigal & Arun Kr Vaish & N.V.M. Rao, 2021. "Role of safety in declining public transport use: Empirical evidence from India," Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 39(4), pages 1302-1317, December.
    16. Shamim Noor & Pawinee Iamtrakul, 2024. "A semi-systematic literature review, identifying the relationship between transit environments and women’s fear of victimization in transportation systems: a global perspective," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 551-581, June.
    17. Methawadee Chaisomboon & Sajjakaj Jomnonkwao & Vatanavongs Ratanavaraha, 2020. "Elderly Users’ Satisfaction with Public Transport in Thailand Using Different Importance Performance Analysis Approaches," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-20, October.
    18. Xuan Phuong Nguyen, 2019. "The Bus Transportation Issue And People Satisfaction With Public Transport In Ho Chi Minh City ," Journal of Mechanical Engineering Research & Developments (JMERD), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 42(1), pages 10-16, January.
    19. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    20. Magalhães, David José Ahouagi Vaz de & Rivera-Gonzalez, Carlos, 2021. "Car users’ attitudes towards an enhanced bus system to mitigate urban congestion in a developing country," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 452-464.
    21. Saxena, Aditya & Gupta, Vallary, 2023. "Carpooling: Who is closest to adopting it? An investigation into the potential car-poolers among private vehicle users: A case of a developing country, India," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 11-20.
    22. Jingxu Lan & Yang Xue & Dewei Fang & Qian Zheng, 2022. "Optimal Strategies for Elderly Public Transport Service Based on Impact-Asymmetry Analysis: A Case Study of Harbin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-13, January.
    23. Tia D. INSANI & Wiwandari HANDAYANI & Mega F. K. ASTUTI & Kami H. BASUKI & Bagus H. SETIADJI, 2021. "A Performance Study Of Bus Rapid Transit Lite: Toward A Resilient Semarang City," Transport Problems, Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Transport, vol. 16(3), pages 105-118, September.
    24. Park, Keunhyun & Farb, Anna & Chen, Shuolei, 2021. "First-/last-mile experience matters: The influence of the built environment on satisfaction and loyalty among public transit riders," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 32-42.
    25. Xuemei Zhou & Jiahui Liang & Xiangfeng Ji & Caitlin D. Cottrill, 2019. "The Influence of Information Services on Public Transport Behavior of Urban and Rural Residents," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-19, October.
    26. Shreya Das & Debapratim Pandit, 2013. "Importance of user perception in evaluating level of service for bus transit for a developing country like India: a review," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 402-420, July.
    27. Majumdar, Bandhan Bandhu & Jayakumar, Malavika & Sahu, Prasanta K. & Potoglou, Dimitris, 2021. "Identification of key determinants of travel satisfaction for developing policy instrument to improve quality of life: An analysis of commuting in Delhi," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 281-292.
    28. Dea van Lierop & Madhav G. Badami & Ahmed M. El-Geneidy, 2018. "What influences satisfaction and loyalty in public transport? A review of the literature," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 52-72, January.
    29. Chakrabarti, Sandip & Giuliano, Genevieve, 2015. "Does service reliability determine transit patronage? Insights from the Los Angeles Metro bus system," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 12-20.
    30. Minh Hieu Nguyen & Dorina Pojani, 2023. "Why are Hanoi students giving up on bus ridership?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 811-835, June.
    31. Saleem, Muhammad Abid & Afzal, Hanan & Ahmad, Farooq & Ismail, Hina & Nguyen, Ninh, 2023. "An exploration and importance-performance analysis of bus rapid transit systems’ service quality attributes: Evidence from an emerging economy," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1-13.
    32. Currie, Graham & Wallis, Ian, 2008. "Effective ways to grow urban bus markets – a synthesis of evidence," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 419-429.
    33. Murad Mohammed & Sanjaya Senadheera, 2022. "Public Transport Affordability Evaluation for Addis Ababa City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-18, June.
    34. Cheranchery, Munavar Fairooz & Maitra, Bhargab, 2018. "Investigating perception of captive and choice riders for formulating service standards of ordinary and premium buses in Indian cities," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 89-96.
    35. Thiago Carvalho dos Reis Silveira & Cezar Augusto Romano & Tatiana Maria Cecy Gadda, 2022. "Loyalty and public transit: a quantitative systematic review of the literature," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 362-383, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muhammad Azmat & Mahmoud Ghalayini & Reem Hadeed, 2025. "Navigating Mobility in Crises: Public Transport Reliability and Sustainable Commuting Transitions in Lebanon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-28, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sun, Shichao & Zhang, Hui & Zhou, Linlin & Wang, Ke, 2023. "Is the relationship between the perceived service quality and passenger loyalty linear or non-linear? A novel model-independent interpretation method is applied," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 65-79.
    2. Cheranchery, Munavar Fairooz & Ansari, Fathima & Ali, Mubarak, 2024. "Is customized bus service for commuter segments the need of the hour? An integrated IPA-machine learning framework to redefine commuter segments based on quality expectations," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 16-25.
    3. Juan Oña & Rocío Oña, 2023. "Is it possible to attract private vehicle users towards public transport? Understanding the key role of service quality, satisfaction and involvement on behavioral intentions," Transportation, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 1073-1101, June.
    4. Singh, Harpreet & Kathuria, Ankit, 2023. "Heterogeneity in passenger satisfaction of bus rapid transit system among age and gender groups: A PLS-SEM Multi-group analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 27-41.
    5. Chee, Pei Nen Esther & Susilo, Yusak O. & Wong, Yiik Diew, 2020. "Determinants of intention-to-use first-/last-mile automated bus service," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 350-375.
    6. Juan de Oña, 2022. "Service quality, satisfaction and behavioral intentions towards public transport from the point of view of private vehicle users," Transportation, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 237-269, February.
    7. Wei Chiang Chan & Wan Hashim Wan Ibrahim & May Chiun Lo & Mohamad Kadim Suaidi & Shiaw Tong Ha, 2020. "Sustainability of Public Transportation: An Examination of User Behavior to Real-Time GPS Tracking Application," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-20, November.
    8. Muhammad Fadhlullah Abu Bakar & Shuhairy Norhisham & Herda Yati Katman & Chow Ming Fai & Nor Najwa Irina Mohd Azlan & Nur Sarah Shaziah Samsudin, 2022. "Service Quality of Bus Performance in Asia: A Systematic Literature Review and Conceptual Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-21, June.
    9. Pengxiang Ding & Suwei Feng & Jianning Jiang, 2023. "The Impact of Urban Rail Transit Epidemic Prevention Measures on Passengers’ Safety Perception," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-17, February.
    10. Muhammad Ashraf Javid & Nazam Ali & Syed Arif Hussain Shah & Muhammad Abdullah, 2021. "Travelers’ Attitudes Toward Mobile Application–Based Public Transport Services in Lahore," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    11. de Oña, Juan & Estévez, Esperanza & de Oña, Rocío, 2021. "How does private vehicle users perceive the public transport service quality in large metropolitan areas? A European comparison," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 173-188.
    12. Jiankun Yang & Min He & Mingwei He, 2022. "Exploring the Group Difference in the Nonlinear Relationship between Commuting Satisfaction and Commuting Time," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-19, July.
    13. Nguyen-Phuoc, Duy Quy & Vo, Nguyen S. & Su, Diep Ngoc & Nguyen, Vinh Hoang & Oviedo-Trespalacios, Oscar, 2021. "What makes passengers continue using and talking positively about ride-hailing services? The role of the booking app and post-booking service quality," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 367-384.
    14. Hensher, David A. & Ho, Chinh & Mulley, Corinne, 2015. "Identifying resident preferences for bus-based and rail-based investments as a complementary buy in perspective to inform project planning prioritisation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-9.
    15. Ingvardson, Jesper Bláfoss & Nielsen, Otto Anker, 2019. "The relationship between norms, satisfaction and public transport use: A comparison across six European cities using structural equation modelling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 37-57.
    16. Mulley, Corinne & Ho, Chinh & Ho, Loan & Hensher, David & Rose, John, 2018. "Will bus travellers walk further for a more frequent service? An international study using a stated preference approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 88-97.
    17. Luo, Shuli & He, Sylvia Y. & Grant-Muller, Susan & Song, Linqi, 2023. "Influential factors in customer satisfaction of transit services: Using crowdsourced data to capture the heterogeneity across individuals, space and time," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 173-183.
    18. de Oña, Juan, 2020. "The role of involvement with public transport in the relationship between service quality, satisfaction and behavioral intentions," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 296-318.
    19. Quy Nguyen-Phuoc, Duy & Nguyen, Teron & Ngoc Su, Diep & Thi Le, Phuong & Oviedo-Trespalacios, Oscar, 2022. "How do social cues from other passengers affect word-of-mouth and intention to continue using bus services? A second-order SEM approach," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 302-320.
    20. Shuli Luo & Sylvia Y He, 2021. "Using data mining to explore the spatial and temporal dynamics of perceptions of metro services in China: The case of Shenzhen," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(3), pages 449-466, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:pubtra:v:17:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s12469-024-00367-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.