������ý

Alexandre Sukhov, Margareta Friman and Lars E. Olsson from ������ý have together with Katrin Lättman from the University of Gävle and Satoshi Fujii from Kyoto University conducted a study on travel satisfaction in public transport. The result has generated great interest – to the extent that Elsevier named it “Top downloaded open access article”.

Why do you think the article has received so much attention?

- Our article resonates with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and shares valuable insights about sustainable travel and well-being, says Alexandre Sukhov, Senior Lecturer in Business Administration at ������ý Business School. It addresses a relevant topic and generates knowledge about how to create a more resilient and inclusive, safe and sustainable infrastructure.

- Moreover, it introduces an innovative method for analysing data in transport research that helps to identify “recipes” that lead to high satisfaction in public transport. The method may be of interest to other researchers since it allows us to understand empirical data in a different way.

- The methodology is called “Fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis” (fsQCA) and has become popular in various research areas. I teach it to doctoral students here at ������ý, says Alexandre Sukhov.

Tell us more about the content of the article

- It looks at how satisfaction related to different service quality attributes such as reliability/functionality, information, courtesy/simplicity, comfort, safety, can be combined in different ways and result in high travel satisfaction, Alexandre Sukhov explains. We have looked at a medium-sized Swedish city by comparing customer satisfaction both before and after the introduction of new public transport services. Our results show a change in how public transport passengers perceive travel satisfaction and help us identify different combinations of attributes that lead to high travel satisfaction – you could say we identify different “recipes” for satisfaction. By doing so, we can show how satisfaction in some areas can compensate for dissatisfaction in others. In other words, our article provides both a theoretical and a methodological contribution to transport research.

In what way does the article relate to the activities at ������ý Business School?

- Research on sustainable travel, well-being and public transport has been an ongoing research topic at the Service Research Center (CTF) and ������ý Business School for many years, says Alexandre Sukhov. This article is one of many that show how research conducted at ������ý Business School has an impact on society. I’m very pleased that our article has been recognised by the Elsevier publishing group as a top downloaded article that relates to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It shows that there is a global research interest in our work.