Abstract
Many railway companies survey customer satisfaction to listen to passengers and to improve service. Typical questions focus only on satisfaction about several aspects of current service such as on-time performance, travel time, service frequency, fare, as well as overall satisfaction. A personal attachment to the railway, a lack of attachment or negative experience, however, may bias answers from respondents. We have done customer satisfaction surveys, as approximately 10,000 passengers received our written questionnaire at stations in Tokyo. We used structural equation modelling to explain relationship between personal attachment and customer satisfaction. The results show that, statistically, passengers who were satisfied more with station facilities and staffs had stronger personal attachment to the railway. Duration of use, defined by number of years at their current residences, number of years using the railway and their local stations, positively affect personal attachment to railways. Passengers who were more impressed at tidiness also have stronger personal attachment. And those who had stronger personal attachment to the railway indicated that they would recommend using the railway to others and want to continue using the railway themselves. Hence, railway companies should keep the facilities clean and tidy so as to satisfy users and to engage users' sense of personal attachment to railways. Cultivating users' personal attachment to railways is one way of sustaining public use of railways.
