The effect of tram service quality on passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty: Gaziantep case

Streetcar services that have a significant locus in inner-city transportation are an important and necessary mood of transportation that urbanization brings about. Especially streetcar services which are one of the means of mass transportation add to the color of the city to which they give service distinctively. Due to the rise in the barrel prices of oil for the sake of the economic crisis and war in the world, urban people turned into mass transportation for inner-city travels, and thereby streetcar services which are crucial for inner-city transportation have become gradually more important. This research aims to interrogate the effect of streetcar service quality in streetcar transportation on traveler enjoyment and traveler loyalty. A questionnaire with 505 travelers who live in Gaziantep and actively use streetcar transportation has been conducted. As green logistics and green cities are important for the sustainability of metropolitan cities, the use of streetcar services that provide ecological transportation services must be increased. Service quality from that point of view plays a significant role. Thereby, the impact of streetcar service quality on traveler satisfaction and traveler loyalty has been researched in the study conducted, and 505 people who directly take streetcar services have been applied to a questionnaire, and the questionnaires have been gathered and evaluated to reveal the service quality of streetcar services provided by Gazi Ulaş Incorporation. Henceforth, the study has been conducted. The analyses of the questionnaires have been made via SPSS and AMOS package software programs, and they have been interpreted. At the end of the analyses, the hypotheses of the research have been verified, and the influence of service quality on traveler satisfaction and traveler loyalty has been found. They have proved that streetcar service quality has a positive influence on traveler satisfaction, while it does not influence re-use and traveler loyalty. Henceforth, out of the hypotheses, traveler satisfaction and re-use have not been influenced (H5 and H2 refused) while other hypotheses (H1, H3, H4) have been accepted. Keywords: Streetcar, service quality, mass transportation, traveler satisfaction, and serviqual scale, urban logistics, and environmentalist transportation.