• VENKATESH R
• Dr. REVATHI ANANDKUMAR

As public transportation facilities grow older, the quality of service dwindles and commuters are left with no option but to accept what is offered (Andreassen, 1994). Mazulla and Eboli (2006) were of the view that the dwindling nature of the services being provided is as a result of public transport operators given too much importance to financial gains at the expense of ensuring service quality delivery in their operations. Service quality has been established as one of the many factors that influence customer satisfaction (Hohanson, 1995). Research works on public transportation has been focused on commuter’s perception on service quality (Govender, 2014 and Randheer et.al, 2011), with little to no focus on service quality influence on customer satisfaction. Service quality variables of interest to public transport services should therefore be the focus of providers. Existing literature reveals that behavior of personnel and specific behavior of cab driver, frequency of services, reliability of services as well as time and particularly waiting time seem to be the most crucial factors affecting customer satisfaction (Rabiul et al, 2014). Service frequency, reliability, convenience and responsiveness are service quality variables that are also considered important in customer satisfaction (Cavana and Corbett, 2007; Taylor et al, 2008). Therefore, the present research is important to understand is there any significant influence of cab user perception on customer satisfaction? The main objective is to examine the perception and satisfaction of cab users in Coimbatore. The data were randomly collected from all the major five service points. Commuters were intercepted at the service points while waiting to board taxi to their destinations. In all a sample of 180 commuters were contacted for the survey. Tools used are descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling. It is found that the contribution of reliability leading to satisfaction is 23.1% while, the contribution and affordability was very low at 0.7% and 0.95% respectively. Goodness of fit index recorded excellent fitness level to validate the model. Study clarifies that though there is association between comfort and satisfaction as well as affordability and satisfaction, perception of the respondents was found only marginal whereas, reliability and satisfaction was found to be high contributing construct in the study, which means, cab users in Coimbatore highly rely on the services provided by various service providers viz. OLA, Uber, Fast Track, City, etc. to name a few. There is a need to ensure affordability and also comfort which are found to have marginally below as perceived by the cab users in Coimbatore.

CAB Users, Reliability, Perception, Satisfaction, etc.

"PERCEPTION AND SATISFACTION OF CAB USERS IN COIMBATORE: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no.186-192, April-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904636.pdf

"PERCEPTION AND SATISFACTION OF CAB USERS IN COIMBATORE: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no. pp186-192, April-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904636.pdf