Bus services improvement through bottom-up planning : a Bangkok case study | |
| Author | Nuttimas Akarapanuvitaya |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.TE-03-05 |
| Subject(s) | Buses--Thailand--Bangkok Bus lines--Customer services--Thailand--Bangkok |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Bus service improvement can play an important role towards current users' satisfaction as well as in encouraging non-users, especially private car users, to use public transport which, in turn, could alleviate traffic congestion and its serious effects in urban areas. The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority or BMTA which is currently a stated own enterprise, under the Ministry of Transport, responsible for the majority of bus service system in Bangkok and five neighbouring provinces has recognized this strategy for years. Many studies on improving the BMT A services were undertaken based on planners' point of views, called "Top-Down Planning Approach". Some have been selected to implement, but unsatisfactory in service of BMTA is, unfortunately, still remaining. To reflect the real needs of all stakeholders which comprise of governmental group, Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) group and general people group, this study employed an alternative approach, called "Bottom-Up Planning Approach", which includes all stakeholders in planning process, to prioritize issues and recommend possible measures for improving the BMTA services. Questionnaire and interview survey were carried out to obtain the lists of deficiencies of bus services and measures to improve bus services from the general people perspective with respect to three different types of bus including BMTA Regular buses, BMTA Air-conditioned buses, and Private Regular buses (joint services). Five main issues for bus service improvement from the surveys including courtesy of driver and conductor improvement, comfort of passenger improvement, safety improvement, travel time and reliability improvement and reasonable bus fare improvement were then prioritized to perceive the importance of each issue for each type of bus service improvement by applying the combination of two analytical methods, the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the operational competitiveness rating analysis (OCRA) to all stakeholders. It was known that for both BMTA Regular buses and BMTA air-conditioned buses, the first three ranking priority for bus services improvement are improvement in safety, travel time and reliability, and comfort of passenger, respectively. However, for Private buses (joint services), the first and the second priority are same as two types of BMTA buses, but the third priority is improvement in courtesy of drivers and conductors. Finally, a set of recommendations for improving services of each type of buses were drawn in this study based on the results from bottom up process with regard to the prioritized issues. |
| Year | 2004 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Department of Civil and Infrastucture Engineering (DCIE) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Transportation Engineering (TE) |
| Chairperson(s) | Yordphol Tanaboriboon |
| Examination Committee(s) | Hanaoka, Shinya ;Pannapa Herabat |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | H.M. King's of Thailand |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2004 |