| Summary: | It is widely recognised that the perspective of the UK transport political agenda has shifted from the provision of services towards improving the quality management process, in order to alleviate the problems resulting from the accelerated car dependency. This political shift has imposed several demands on public transport, and specifically on bus services, to achieve sustainable and integrated transport solutions. It is evident that in order to attract more people to public transport, the service quality should be able to accommodate the quality level demanded by current customers, and importantly, the quality level desired by potential customers. However, the traditional quality management process has concentrated on the individual analysis of two quality measures: performance and perception, while it has failed to consider the multidimensional interrelationships between both measures and the side-effects of performance quality on user perception. This conflict represents an area of lacking research which forms the basis of this study to evaluate and optimise the performance quality of bus services with perception and attitude measures of both current and potential users. The study implemented a mixed method approach and collected data on user preference, satisfaction, and performance quality. Multiple techniques were operationalised including qualitative analysis of user perception, multi-perspective analysis of stakeholders towards the application relevance of bus quality indicators, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) modelling of user preferences, weighted perception index of current and potential users, and binary logistic regression analysis (BLRA) of the influences of performance quality on the perception of different categories of users. The combination of these techniques is operationalised to construct a novel methodological approach for evaluating bus quality that considers performance (objective) and perception (subjective) quality parameters and considers the perceptions of current and potential users. The study highlighted various contributions to knowledge: firstly, the study developed a concise set of bus quality indicators that considers the perspectives of all stakeholders and could be readily implemented across the sector. Secondly, the study found that although the preferences of users towards bus service vary significantly within context and level of involvement, ten indicators explain a significant share of the preferences of different categories of users towards bus services. Thirdly, the study identified that using only preference or satisfaction for evaluating user perception may lead to limited results, and the integration of both generates new patterns of weighted perception measure which distinctly explains the internal composition of user perception. Fourthly, the study found that eleven performance indicators have significant impact on the perception of current and potential users. Lastly, the study concluded by illustrating two alternatives for optimising the performance quality of bus services with the perceptions of current and potential users by balancing the required quality improvements with the current desire for economical recession.
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