Aplicações da ferramenta Servqual na avaliação da qualidade em serviços de transporte interestadual de passageiros: o caso de uma empresa da zona da mata mineira

Abstract

Road passenger transport is responsible for integrating people to the most diverse places, promoting country social and economic development. The buses companies responsible for that service are facing a rise competition in those field, through innovative transportation solutions such as shared rides, Uber, Buser. The varied options and convenience of transportation offered to Brazilians requires transportation companies to evaluate the quality of service offered as a competitive and strategic differential. To this end, the present research tries to identify what are the factors which influence the quality of provided service for the case of a road passenger transport company in Zona da Mata Mineira based on the adaptation of SERVQUAL scale, a model adapted to assess service quality. The theoretical framework addresses the following fields of knowledge: services marketing, services quality, transport and the interstate passenger transport system. It is an exploratory, descriptive study, in form of a case study and survey research with questionnaires application to service users. The research, which has a quantitative approach, had a total of 225 respondents relevant to the analysis, and therefore validated for the study. The first part of questionnaire were composed by closed questions, could help to measure the factors importance by using descriptive statistics, factor analysis and reliability analysis (Cronbach's alpha). With 65.56% of explained variance, 4 factors were identified in the factor analysis: Assurance and Reliability (α = 0.891), Tangibility (α = 0.843), Empathy (α = 0.841), Responsiveness (α = 0.552). It is noted that the Responsiveness factor did not obtain a significant alpha. The second part of questionnaire revealed that 57.78% of sample is made up by women, 30.67% of respondents were young people with 36.89% presenting high school followed by higher education with 27.56%, 56% of sample consisted by single passengers, with 32.89% showing an income above R$ 4,124.00. The third part of questionnaire revealed that the reason for the trip was to visit relatives and friends with 43.11% followed by leisure with 29.78%, with an eventual frequency of trips on 51.56%, using car as a substitute for the bus (70.22%), buying the ticket at sale’s points (57.78%). As a contribution, this work highlights the relevance of provision of road passenger transport service to excel in quality, as a competitive advantage strategy before the market. The study had the benefit of providing the company with information about the service quality provided on the interstate line, the main strategic line which represents 30% of company's revenue, and which at the same time is affected by competition. Thus, an institutional action plan was prepared for the future organization analysis, identifying the critical success factors, the gaps in services provision and scenarios solutions.