Service quality of railway services in Kashmir division

The main objective of this study is to present an insight into the passengers’ perception about the service quality of railway services in Kashmir division. The passengers expect huge services from Indian Railways, so to study their perception about service quality is very essential. Transport facility such as Railways is an important characteristic of infrastructure facilitating movement of goods and people from one place to another place. This paper is aimed to discuss the perception of Quality of service of passengers travelling in railways in Kashmir Division and willingness to put more efforts to improve it. It considers five dimensions of service quality (SERVQUAL model) given by Parasuraman et al. (1988), i.e. assurance, empathy, reliability, tangibility and responsiveness. By using non-probability convenience sampling a survey of 448 passengers of Indian Railway in Kashmir Division was carried out using a designed questionnaire. This paper is intent to measure the service quality of Indian Railway in Kashmir Division. The questionnaire of tested instrument comprising of 22 statements was administered to measure the passengers’ perceptions about the service quality of railways. Findings show that there is significant degree of optimism towards dimensions of service quality i.e. Reliability, Assurance and Empathy. The study revealed that Tangibility and Responsiveness variables were having a low score and the passengers were unsatisfied about these two dimensions of service quality of railways. The study indicated that the management of railways in Kashmir Division should work towards keeping up to marks the various tangible things like Basic facilities. They should improve Availability of seats, Drinking water and Hygiene factors which include sanitation quality, neatness of compartment and neatness in railway stations Information Accessibility, etc.