Which tracks lead to customer satisfaction amongst train passengers? A questionnaire on service quality perceptions of the Dutch rail services amongst 404 train users

The research question of this paper is: what variables in the domain of perceived service quality can explain the variance in passengers’ overall satisfaction with services rendered by the Dutch railways? According to the applied theory – Copocc - central variables in this domain are the core service, physical environment, personnel, organisational processes, communication and the word of mouth from other customers. A convenience sample of 404 train travellers filled in an online questionnaire, consisting of 25 Osgood’s semantic differential scales, addressing these independent variables. The overall satisfaction (the
dependent variable) was measured on a ten point scale. Five of the six independent variables explained 67% of the variance of the overall satisfaction with the Dutch railway services, which is an indication that the COPOCC theory fits the data, although the field study was limited by the non-probability type of sampling.