a study on passengers’ opinion and approach about the
TRANSCRIPT
www.theinternationaljournal.org > RJCBS: Volume: 01, Number: 06, April-2012 Page 1
Division workshop
Depot Buses
7 76 1767
16 126
8000
Graph -1
Showing growth of GSRTC
Position on 1960 Position on 2011
Abstract:- A person travels from one place to other to
accomplish their daily needs of their life. In the past, people
were using many transportation media like a bullock cart, a
cycle rickshaw, through walking etc. as a means of
transportation vehicles. However, public transport still
remains the primary mode of transport for most of the
population. To commence this survey work the researchers
have used convenient sampling method to collect the
samples from Mehsana region. Here, collected 300 samples
were analyzed with the help of statistical software SPSS.16.
For the analysis of the data researchers have used
statistical tools like Graphs, Descriptive statistics, χ2- test, t-
test, and Binomial test were used. Analysis of the data
exposed that the passengers travel by ST bus is not
significantly associated with the demographic variables like
age, income, gender, etc. Moreover, it’s also emphasize that
equal proportion of male and female passengers’ travel by
GSRTC with same purpose and their traveling expenses per
month is less than Rs.500 and they feel that GSRTC should
take a proper care of their buses and should also improve
the behavior of their employees and are not in favor of
privatization of the organization.
Index Terms:- GSRTC, Passengers, Privatization. Opinion
I. INTRODUCTION
A person travels from one place to other to fulfill their
daily needs of their personal life. In the past, people were
using many media like a bullock cart, a cycle rickshaw,
through walking etc. as a means of transportation vehicles.
Now a day in this fast moving life it is not possible and
reliable to travel with the help of these modes. If people use
these sources to travel from one place to other, it’s known to
be wastages of time. Hence, people use the different
transportation modes like their personal vehicles, private
transport or through the government transportation vehicles
which can transport them to the relevant place within short
span of time with entertainment.
In India, all states provide transportation facilities
to their people. There are various government transportation
corporations which are working in their own state. These all
the government passenger transport corporations are like
Gujarat State Road Transportation Corporation (GSRTC),
Rajasthan State Road Transportation Corporation (RSRTC)
and Maharashtra State Road Transportation Corporation etc.
Gujarat State Road Transportation Corporation
(GSRTC) passenger transport Corporation provides bus
services / Public transit both within Gujarat and to the
neighboring states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra and
Madhyapradesh. It also runs buses to the Union Territories
of Daman & Diu. GSRTC came into existence on 1st may,
1960 on formation of Gujarat state.
Graph -1 showing the growth of GSRTC vary from
their starting time. It shows that, during the stating time of
GSRTC (i.e. in 1960) it had 7 division workshop, 76 depot
and 1767 buses but now a today’s ( i. e in 2011) it has 16
division workshops, 126 depot and 8000 buses are running
on the road of Gujarat state
As a transportation service provider, with the
growth of an organization it’s really worth fully for them to
understand the passengers’ opinion regarding their services
weather they are satisfied about the different types of the
services or what they want. Their demand and preference
are changed or which types of services they are expecting
from the government transportation corporation.
TRANSPORT IN INDIA
Transport in the Republic of India is an important
part of the nation's economy. Since the economic
liberalization of the 1990s, development of infrastructure
A Study on Passengers’ Opinion and Approach
about the Government Passengers’ Transport
Services: A Special Case of Gujarat State Road
Transportation Corporation (GSRTC) Assist. Prof. Patel Atul & Assist. Prof. Prajapati Rasik,
Smt. S. B. Patel Institute of Business Management, Nootan School Campus, Visnagar, Gujarat (India)
www.theinternationaljournal.org > RJCBS: Volume: 01, Number: 06, April-2012 Page 2
within the country has progressed at a rapid pace, and today
there is a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water
and air. However, the relatively low GDP of India has meant
that access to these modes of transport has not been
uniform.
In the interim however, public transport still remains the
primary mode of transport for most of the population, and
India's public transport systems are among the most heavily
utilized in the world. India's rail network is the longest and
fourth most heavily used system in the world transporting
over 6 billion passengers and over 350 million tons
of freight annually. Despite ongoing improvements in the
sector, several aspects of the transport sector are still riddled
with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of
investment, corruption and a burgeoning population. The
demand for transport infrastructure and services has been
rising by around 10% a year with the current infrastructure
being unable to meet these growing demands. According to
recent estimates by Goldman Sachs, India will need to
spend US$1.7 Trillion on infrastructure projects over the
next decade to boost economic growth of which US$500
Billion is budgeted to be spent during the Eleventh Five-
Year Plan.
India is also known for a variety of indigenous vehicles
made in villages out of simple motors and vehicle spare-
parts.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Transportation plays a significant role in the
Economic, Cultural, Social and Industrial development of
any nation. Transport sector has not received enough
weightage with due consideration of the researchers in the
past. However, at present universities and various research
institutes like Central Road Research Institute, Central
Institute of Road Transport, Association of State Road
Transport Undertakings, Special division of Planning
Commission and Ministry of Surface Transport etc. have
taken special interest in this sector. Several studies have
paid concentration to the Transport Industry. The existing
literature related to present topic can be viewed from the
different perspectives as Review of Literatures within India
and Review of Literatures abroad India.
Halder D. K., in his book titled “Urban Transport
Problem: An Economic Investigation into Public Utilities in
Calcutta”, studied on Calcutta’s traffic problem with focus
on Calcutta State Transport Corporation (CSTC) finds that
for the lower productivity of the CSTC, Low fleet
utilization, Higher absenteeism and Evasion of fare are
responsible factors.
Satyanarayana has found that the cost of service of road
transport depends upon the size of the fleet, the vehicle
condition and the length and road condition. He has
observed that the size of the motor transport unit has been a
fundamental factor influencing the cost of operations of
motor transport industry.
M O Mathew in his book on Rail and Road Transport in
India accentuated that the efficiency of the transport
Industry is determined by Organizational unit sizes. He also
opined that transport, being a public utility industry, is
regulated by Government policies in many ways, of which
some have a direct or indirect impact on the evolution of
size.
Patankar has studied the Road Passenger Transport in
different dimensions since 1950s and analyzed the
operational productivity and efficiency of STUs for the
period 1973-74 to 19979-80. He opined that the future of
road transport sector in India would brighten only with
productivity and passenger Oriented planning are done.
Srivastava has discussed various operating variables like
rates, fares, low productivity, state regulations,
administration, competition, financing, aspects of different
modes of transport. He has analyzed the effect of efficient,
cheap and well coordinated development of transport system
on Indian economy.
Kulkarni has devoted his attention to the bringing about
improvements in the areas of recruitment, selection and
training of the employees in the organization.
Sudarshanam Padam discussed in detail, the history of bus
transport in India, various forms of organizations in State
Transport Undertakings, its management and performance
by way of comparison from 1970-1980 in Andhra Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka State Road Transport
Corporations. He also identified the problems in
performance.
T.A.S. Vijayaraghavan in his research paper “Strategic
options for state road transport undertakings in India”,
published in International Journal of Public Sector
Management, has highlighted that the criticism of SRTUs
has become more transparent with the recent policy
changes.
Rajeswari Gundam, in her book titled “Public Sector
Performance of State Road Transport Corporation: a Case
Study of Andhra Pradesh”, examines both the financial and
social performance of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport
Corporation both at the state and regional levels.
Particularly she dealt with the pricing policies of the
transport service as being implemented by the corporation.
The National Transport Policy Committee (NTPC)
studied on “Passenger Road Transport in India”, taking the
cross-sectional data of 31 undertakings for 1976 – 1977 and
finds that the unit cost was mainly influenced by two
variables namely fleet utilization and vehicle utilization. The
Committee advocated for a direct exchequer subsidy to
urban transport undertakings in view of the social benefits
that they extend.
Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT), Pune,
contributed a paper to a seminar on “How to Make STUs
Financially Viable?”, held by Association of Road
Transport Undertakings, New Delhi, identified the problems
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of interest burden, constraints on increasing fare, leakages of
traffic revenue, and traffic management as major problems
in the way of effective management of State Transport
Undertakings and made some practicable suggestions.
A study ended by the Ministry of Transport, Scottish
Development Department highlighted that the free flow of
traffic at reasonable speed requires planned improvement of
urban road systems. The study also suggested constructing
secondary means of access to enable goods and Service
vehicles to load and unload at the stops.
Sharp C.N. in his work on Transport Economics, examined
the studies undertaken in the field of transport system of
U.K. and studied a number of basic problems like transport
economics, transport investment, transport pricing and
reduction in accident rate.
The literature reviews infer that still not enough
contemplation has been given by the organization or other
researchers to comprehend the passengers’ opinion about
the diverse services provided by the government passenger
transportation corporations. To understand the passengers’
requisite, it is essential to meet passengers and collect their
responses regarding their preference and approach towards
the various schemes and what they expect from the
organization. Thus by considering the above aspects the
researcher has drawn it for their study work.
III. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
In the resent market conditions, many private
passengers’ vehicles are exposed with the better services
and facilities and passengers’ preferences have been
changing from time to time. Hence it becomes very much
difficult for the government passengers transportation to
compete these private players and changing mood of the
passengers.
Thus, the intention of this study is to find out passengers
satisfaction and approach towards the Government
passenger transport service provider GSRTC. Moreover, to
find what passengers do think about their price, facilities,
and the privatization of the organization.
IV. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY:
Limitation of the study work is that the study is undertaken
in Mehsana region of the Gujarat state. Hence we cannot
generalize the finding of the study work with the other
regions.
V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
The present study was undertaken among the
passengers who belong to the Mehsana region. To collect
the primary data, well checked questionnaires were used and
with the help of trained personnel, it was distributed to the
people. In this questionnaire different types of closed- ended
questions were used to capture the relevant information
from the people about the government transportation service
provider GSRTC. For this study, with the help of convenient
sampling method, 325 questionnaires were distributed but
among them only 300 were found to be complete and usable
for the analysis of the data. Analysis of the collected
primary data was done with the help of a statistical software
SPSS.16. In the analysis of the data, different Descriptive
Statistics, Graphs, Binomial test, t- test and ANOVA test
were used.
VI. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS:
To collect the information regarding the passenger
opinions and their satisfaction about the government
transport service provider GSRTC, 300 responses were
collected from the Mehsana district. Here, Analysis
revealed that maximum number (i.e.) 87.3% of the
respondents travel by ST bus in their daily life and only
12.7% don’t travel by ST Bus. Those who don’t travel
through ST bus, they normally use ( i. e 84.2%) their
personal vehicle for traveling and remaining travel by
private vehicles.
Graph- 2 shows purpose of trip of using GSRTC.
From this bar chart we can indicate that 39.31%, 27.48%
and 33.21% of the passenger travel by ST bus for their
work, Education and Social respectively. It means that the
purpose of trip of using GSRTC is normally somewhat
equal for all the passengers.
Here, analysis shows that maximum 46.56% of the
respondents monthly expenses for traveling is less than Rs.
500 and Moreover, it’s also emphasizes that for very less
percent of the respondents monthly expenses is none and
above Rs 1500. From this we may say that whose expenses
is none and above Rs.1500 may travel by their personal
vehicle or in the private vehicle. It depicts that normal
traveling expenses of the passenger is less than Rs 500.
Table-1 indicates about the various facilities which
are expected by the passengers from the GSRTC. Here,
38.5% of the respondents opined that they are more
expecting about the proper timing of the buses, 31.3% of the
respondents are expecting good behavior of conductor and
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driver, 17.2% only expects that the display of the time table
should be there and only 13% are conscious about the
cleanliness on the bus depots and buses. Hence, this analysis
revealed that GSRTC should take a proper care of
maintaining the regular and proper timing of the buses by
making necessary adjustment and they should focus on the
behavior of their employees (Driver, conductor, and other
clerical staff of the organization).
Table - 2 indicates about the satisfactory reply from
the enquire window. It shows that equal proportion of the
respondents have opined about the satisfactory reply from
the inquire window. It means that the passengers are not
fully satisfied and dissatisfied about the reply from the
inquire window.
It also shows that 89.1% of the male respondents
and 84.3% of the female respondents travel by ST bus and
only 10.9% and 15.7% of the male and female respondents
don’t travel by ST bus. This analysis shows that in equal
proportion male and female passengers travel by State
transport bus.
Table-3 Cross – tabulation Purpose of Trip of using GSRTC * Age
Age (Years) Total <
20 20-30
36 - 50
> 50
Purpose of Trip of using GSRTC
Work 3 43 33 24 103 Education 40 30 1 1 72 Social 8 34 20 25 87
Total 51 107 54 50 262
Above table -3 indicates that maximum number ( i.
e 103) of the respondents’ purpose of trip is for their work
and most of them are belonging into the age group 20-30
yrs. Analysis also indicates that the respondents whose age
is less than 20 years their purpose of trip is for education
they rarely use it for their personal work or social problems.
Over all analysis indicates that the main purpose of trip for
the respondents of less than 20 years of age (i.e. students) is
for education and those who are belonging in the upper age
group use ST bus for their work and social reasons.
Graph – 3 focuses on the comparisons of the views
of male and female counterparts regarding the major factors
which they considered while traveling by ST bus. It shows
that both male and female respondents are almost equally
considered about the fare. But, there is major difference in
the opinion regarding the other factors like Quality, Time
and Security. Here, a male passenger gives more importance
to the Quality and Security factors while Female passenger
gives more importance to the timing factors. It means that
the female are more conscious about the timing of the buses.
They don’t like to wait long time to pick up bus. Hence to
attract maximum number of female passengers, GSRTC
should become time punctual regarding the timing of the
buses
Opinion of male and female passengers regarding
the fare charged by GSRTC indicates that the fare charged
by the GSRTC is Economical as compared to the private
passengers’ transportation agency. 31.76% and 37.36% of
the male and female respondents reveal that the fare charged
by GSRTC is not very high. This shows that the female
passengers are still not satisfied about the fare charged by
the GSRTC.
Table- 1
Facilities expected from GSRTC
Frequency %
Proper timing of Buses 101 38.5
Good behavior of conductor and driver 82 31.3
Display of Time table 45 17.2
Cleanliness 34 13.0
Total 262 100.0
Table - 2
Satisfactory reply from the inquire window
Frequency %
No 128 48.9
Yes 134 51.1
Total 262 100.0
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From the graph -4, we can say that 25.95%,
21.37%, 20.61% of the respondents are expecting News
papers, FM radio, and Magazine respectively as an
additional facility which should be provided. It revealed
that with the help of these facilities, a passenger can pass
their time very easily and simultaneously they may remain
in contact with the current issues of the market. Now days,
maximum number of the service man and women pass their
time in journey from their home to service places and cannot
read or allot their very busy schedule for the further reading
about the book and magazine. Hence, GSRTC should
provide these additional facilities to their passengers.
Analysis revealed that among all the respondents
70.6% of the respondents are satisfied about the quality of
the ST buses and only 29.4% are not satisfied with the
quality of the buses. Moreover, if we see about the
agreement of the respondents towards the privatization of
the ST buses, 65.6% are not in favor of privatization of the
ST buses.
Analysis also emphasizes that 24.4% are not
satisfied with the quality of the buses and still they are not in
favor of the privatization of the ST bus and 75.6% satisfied
respondents are not in favor of privatization of the GSRTC.
Hence, we may depict that the satisfied and non satisfied
respondents are not agreed about the privatization of
GSRTC.
Table-4 Awareness Regarding Promotional Schemes
Frequency %
No 129 49.2
Yes 133 50.8
Total 262 100.0
Above respondents analysis regarding the
awareness about the promotional schemes indicates that
almost equal proportion of the respondents have knowledge
and are familiar about the promotional schemes which are
implemented by the GSRTC. It means that there is no
significant difference in the opinion regarding the awareness
about the various promotional schemes which are in force
by the GSRTC. By converting this non awareness ratio into
awareness ratio, GSRTC may attract maximum number of
working and non working people to utilize these various
promotional related schemes and it may also creates loyalty
and attraction of the passengers towards the government
transport service provider GSRTC
VII. TESTING OF HYPOTHESIS:
H01: More than 80% of the respondents travel by ST
bus in their routine life.
Here in non parametric test, binomial test is
suitable. So, researchers have used Binomial test to test the
above assumption. Test results of the binomial test are given
in the below table – 5
Table-5 Binomial Test
Category N Obs. Prop.
Test
Prop.
Asy.
Sig.
Travel
by
ST Bus
Yes 262 .87 .85 .146
No 38 .13
300 1.00
Here, Binomial test asymp. Sig. (1-tailed) is found
to be 0.146 which is highly significant. Hence we can
conclude that more than 85% of the respondents travel by
ST bus in their routine life.
H01: Fare charged by GSRTC is economical as compared
to the private passengers’ vehicles.
Table- 6 One-Sample Test Test Value = 2
(Economical)
Fare
charged
by GSRTC
t d.f Sig. Mean
Diff.
95% C. I.
Difference
Lower Upper
5.120 260 .000 .207 0.13 0.29
Table-6 shows one sample t- test two tailed
significant value is found to be 0.000. It means that there is
significant difference in the test value and standardize value.
Hence H01 will be rejected. But, mean value is greater than
the test value 2 (Economical and low) that is 2.21. It
revealed that the fare charged by GSRTC is not only
economical but it is also low.
Table- 7 Chi-Square Tests
Demographic variables
v/s travel by ST bus
Test
value
Sig. Symmetric
Measure
Gender 1.44 0.230 0.069
Age 6.802 0.078 0.151
Marital Status 9.88 0.02 0.181
Employment Status 8.52 0.074 0.169
Educational
Qualification
4.49 0.213 0.122
Monthly Incomes 6.36 0.174 0.146
Area 6.61 0.037 0.148
Table -7 indicates chi-square test value and
symmetric measure phi. It shows that all the demographic
variables and passengers travel by ST bus are significantly
not associated. Moreover, the symmetric measure Phi which
is also very small which support the test. Hence, an
organization can formulate their various promotional
schemes without considering the demographic variables.
Analysis also emphasize that 24.4% are not
satisfied with the quality of the buses and still they are not in
favor of the privatization of the ST bus and 75.6% satisfied
respondents are not in favor of privatization of the GSRTC
because they have fear that the privatization of the
organization can create exploitation of the passengers.
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VIII. CONCLUSION:
In the passengers’ transportation service sector,
many private players come with the additional facilities
according to the requirements of passengers. In the modern
era, it becomes inevitable for the government and private
transportation service provider to take care of passengers.
It indicates that the demographic variables are not
significantly associated with the passengers’ mode of
traveling. Above findings show that equal proportion of
male and female passengers’ travel by GSRTC with same
purpose and their traveling expenses per month is less than Rs.500. Here, passengers replied that GSRTC should take a
proper care of maintaining the regular and proper timing of
the buses by making crucial modification and they should
also focus on the behavior of their employees who are
directly get in touch with passengers.
Maximum number of the service men and women
pass their time in journey from their home to service place
and cannot allot time for the further reading about the book
and magazine from their very busy schedule. Hence,
GSRTC can take care of their passengers by providing
certain additional facilities like magazines and newspapers
to their passengers.
By converting this non awareness ratio into
awareness ratio, GSRTC may attract maximum number of
working and non working people to utilize these various
promotional related schemes and it may also create loyalty
and attraction of the passengers towards the government
transport service provider GSRTC. It also depict that the
satisfied and non satisfied respondents are not agree about
the privatization of GSRTC.
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