Improvement of Inland Water Transport Service Based on Users' Perception

Abstract

The current study investigates priority areas for improving ferry services to attract commuters, demonstrated with reference to twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah in India. This research proposes using a superior data collection mechanism compared to traditional methods called Best-Worst Scaling (BWS), to assess the importance and satisfaction of the users regarding 20 relevant inland ferry attributes. A two-stage analysis is performed starting with estimation of gap scores, to get an idea about the level of performance of the existing service facilities, followed by Importance-Satisfaction Analysis (ISA) for identifying the priority areas. The gap analysis reveals that 11 out of 20 attributes have negative gap scores, emphasising the need for service improvement. Most of the priority areas of improvement are qualitative, highlighting the importance of considering them in policy decisions. The study offers several valuable insights to transport planners and policy makers for improvement of inland water transport (IWT) service.