New study shows customer focus benefits bottom line

Aug 31, 2009

A new research study validates that strong passenger rights and passenger participation improves the bottom line for public transport authorities. The 5-year European study - Public Transport and Its Users - was conducted by Dr. Martin Schiefelbusch and and Dr. Hans-Liudger Dienel at the Nexus Institute for Cooperation Management and Interdisciplinary Research in Germany. Some public authorities stll fear that strenghtening passenger rights will only add to the cost side, but the study concludes that  "In almost all cases that passengers’ rights have been codified and enforced, the number of passengers has increased, the image of public transport and of transport companies has improved; and despite additional expenses, the economic situation of the transport industry has improved as well."

The study points to passenger participation as a neglected opportunity. Transport authorities should view passengers as customers and "...collaborative counterparts and decision-makers in identifying weak points and developing proposals for the improvement of the public transport system." The authors concludes that "It is truly astonishing that an issue [passenger rights and passenger participation] so important for the future of public transport has to date been so neglected."

Says Jonas Westerdahl, Head of Boomerang: "We are pleased to see research in this area, although we are not surprised by the results of this study. The Boomerang solution was developed exactly for the purpose of encouraging customer participation and enabling passenger rights policies. For example, the system supports end-to-end management of reimbursement claims, and enables a fine-grained and customized categorization of passenger opinions to serve as basis for better decision-making."

Click here for more information on the study (Public Transport and Its Users, ISBN: 978-0-7546-7447-4).