Enhancing Passenger Satisfaction Through SERQUAL and Perceived Value: Insights from Indian Railway Food Services

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-799-1_27How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Passenger satisfaction; perceived value; SERVQUAL; and Railway food quality

Abstract

The quality of food service plays a crucial role in shaping passenger experiences and satisfaction in railway catering services. This study analyzes the dimensions of service quality affecting perceived value and passenger satisfaction in Indian railway catering. Further specifically, it considers the service parts, namely, reliability, responsiveness, tangibility, assurance, empathy, that SERVQUAL construct has in affecting the overall perception of the service and passenger satisfaction. The sample of 293 respondents was collected at three major railways stations (Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad) along three major long distance trains in the Gujarat station. By Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), it also confirms that the five SERVQUAL dimensions are highly relevant for the passenger’s perceived value that in turn mediates the association between the same dimensions searched by the passenger satisfaction. So, among the factors that it has an enormous impact on perceived value we have service consistency, staff attentiveness of staff, food presentation, and lastly hygiene. These findings also highlight the need to fulfil all these measures to achieve high food quality, rapid and courteous service and to keep hygiene standards, which aim to please passengers and gain their loyalty. Finally, this thesis offers valuable ideas for improvement of the service to customers and the operational efficiency of catering service providers of railway. These studies could help on planning strategic interventions aiming at enhancing overall the passenger experience, in general and food service in railway domain in particular.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Vishal Gawande
AU  - Rakesh Sharma
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/08/13
TI  - Enhancing Passenger Satisfaction Through SERQUAL and Perceived Value: Insights from Indian Railway Food Services
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Innovation and Regenerative Trends in Tourism and Hospitality Industry (IRTTHI 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 315
EP  - 338
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-799-1_27
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-799-1_27
ID  - Gawande2025
ER  -