Service Quality Assessment of Sharedautorickshaws Using Subsets-Based Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Shared mobility is changing urban transportation in India by providing transportation services without the need for ownership. Sharedautorickshaws (also called as share-autos) are a popular mode of shared mobility in the country. These informal vehicles can hold six to ten passengers and operate on a hail-to-board basis. It is important to evaluate the service quality of share-autos as they gain popularity. While research on passenger satisfaction with shared mobility services exists, studies on service quality perception related to share-autos are limited. To address this research gap, a survey was conducted with 581 shareauto users in India. The study created a Confirmatory Factor Analysisbased model with five latent variables and 22 manifest variables. The results revealed that 18 variables significantly influenced service quality. Variables that had weaker factor loading in the overall analysis were found more important when analysed for different subsets of the sample population. For instance, female-only or low-income-group respondents may prioritize different factors than the overall sample, and the ranking of factor loading changes across the subsets. The study shows that subset-based analysis can provide a more nuanced understanding of the passenger experience in share-autos, identifying potential opportunities to improve the quality of these services.