Market Orientation in Public Transport Research—A Review

Abstract

It is commonly argued that, in order to meet increasing competition, public transport organizations and systems need to be market oriented. Even though the notion of market orientationhas not been explicitly addressed in public transport research, studies relevant to market orientation have been conducted. The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of market orientation into the field of public transport, to review previous research into market orientation in public transport research, and to suggest directions for future research. Market orientation is defined as the generation and dissemination of market intelligence by organizations, as well as responses to it. The review suggests that previous academic research has focused on intelligence generation by developing and using models for measuring travel behaviour, stated preferences, perceived customer quality, and satisfaction. Studies of responsiveness have mainly addressed the physical improvements made in public transport organizations, which is also the primary concern of the industry research accounted for. There has been less research into the dissemination of market intelligence, the drivers of market orientation, the relations between the elements, and the overall concept of market orientation in public transport. It is thus concluded that future public transport research needs to address these issues.

Why and How to Use Customer Opinions: A Quality-of-Life and Customer Satisfaction-Oriented Foundation for Performance-Based Decision-Making

“…By collecting a range of customer opinion data, a transportation agency may generate intelligence about customer needs "projected future needs", "factors affecting their needs", and "the [transportation] organization's ability to meet these needs" (Molander, Fellesson, Friman, & Skalen, 2012). Once this intelligence is generated, as Molander et al (2012) point out, it must then be disseminated to decision-makers. The development and reporting of performance measures based on customer opinion data can address the need for both intra-agency and inter-agency intelligence dissemination.…”

Changing roles and new perspectives: towards market orientation in public transport

“…In public transport research, most studies relating to responsiveness have primarily focused on physical improvements (e.g. speed, service frequency) without addressing the link between responsiveness and the generated intelligence (Molander et al 2012). Therefore, knowledge is also lacking with regards to the role of generated intelligence in the public transport actors' decision processes for improvements.…”

“…The public transport studies that can be related to intelligence dissemination have focused on interorganizational aspects that can be argued to have a disseminating effect, e.g. benchmarking and collaboration (Molander et al 2012).…”

“…Subjecting public services to market principles is one major strand of opinion being advocated in the stream of research labeled 'New Public Management' (NPM), where the basic assumptions are that market orientation improves public service performance (Walker et al 2011) and that citizens' preferences should be used as the basis for formulating objectives (Vigoda 2002;Rourke 1992). In public transport research, market orientation has only recently been introduced and applied to a public transport context (Molander et al 2012). The concept of market orientation operationalizes the notion that a market focus is essential, which is an underlying assumption in the development of NPM and the changes taking place in the public transport industry.…”

Untitled

“…Transit agencies are showing growing interest in understanding consumer behavior and have recognized that market-orientated research in public transit is likely to result in increases in user satisfaction (Molander et al 2012;Transportation Research Board 1998a, 1998b. A first step toward identifying ways to increase customer satisfaction is to develop a market segmentation strategy to understand the needs and desires of the different groups using transit.…”