Factors that impact bus transport satisfaction in Shanghai, China

Reform of the urban public bus transport service in Shanghai, China aims to improve customer satisfaction and stimulate more passenger use. The public bus transport service, which is different from commercial services, not only considers the service quality but also public participation, government financial input and other factors. An urban public bus satisfaction model was constructed based on customer satisfaction theory. The model was tested using Shanghai's public bus service data and the structural equation model method. The model was found to comprise five latent variables – perceived quality, customer perceived input, public participation, satisfaction and trust – and the results show that the model's goodness of fit indexes are satisfactory. Second, the results of this study show that improvements in perceived quality and public participation could increase satisfaction and trust, which would motivate more people to use the service. Policy suggestions are therefore that the Shanghai government should improve the quality of the bus service and explore more avenues of public participation.