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schedule business meetings without wasting valuable
time. Service failures, such as late arrivals or
cancellations, can result in significant costs, or
worse, passengers may miss important meetings
altogether.
Although leisure tourists may be less time
sensitive than their business counterparts, service
failures also lead to a lower service quality since
holiday trips may be shortened or impossible to
complete. Thus, transportation providers who offer
high quality, dependable service can expect to
enjoy a competitive advantage over lower quality
service providers. Shippers of freight frequently
want their shipments delivered to a particular place
at a specific time, such as for a restaurant that
uses `just-in-time' purchasing.
Communication is yet another significant dimension
of transportation service quality. A
carrier's ability and willingness to communicate
with tourists or shippers may be extremely
important in terms of the customer's perception
of service quality. Even though a service failure
may occur, if the customer is made aware of the
problem in advance, alternate arrangements can
be made. When no advance notice of problems is
given, they or freight may be stranded for long
periods of time. This may cause serious problems
leading to substantial costs beyond the transportation
expenses, including the possible loss of future
business from the customer.
The carrier's ability and willingness to communicate
with its customers may mean that a tourist
or shipper can avoid surprises, reducing the
potential for having to deal with unexpected
problems. Generally, the more information that
the carrier can communicate to the customer, the
more effective and satisfactory the service becomes.
Thus, transportation service is a multifaceted
concept, and in order to ensure that the service
quality meets the needs of customers, managers
must carefully measure and control all dimensions.
See also: transportation pricing
Further reading
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. and Berry, L.L.
�1985) À conceptual model of service quality
and its implications for future research', Journal
of Marketing 49�Fall): 41±50. �Suggests that service
quality is best defined in terms of gaps that exist
between customer expectations of service and
their perceptions of the actual service provided.)
Gourdin, K.N. and Kloppenborg, T.J. �1991)
`Identifying service gaps in commercial air
travel: the first step toward quality improvement',
Transportation Journal 31�1): 22±30. �Discusses
commercial airline service and identifies
opportunities for managers to improve service
quality.)
quantitative method
quantitative method 483
JOHN OZMENT, USA
Historically, the sciences and the business fields
have tended to favour quantitative methods. In
statistical analysis, the researcher gathers data and
evaluates it in order to locate trends or correlations.
The researcher begins with a `null hypothesis'
which presupposes no patterns exist; thus, a
flipped coin is assumed to have an equal chance of
turning up `heads' or tails'. By flipping the coin a
number of times the researcher gets a sample of
observed phenomena which is used to determine
the odds that the observed behaviour actually
resulted from chances. The researcher then applies
a `decision rule' to the observed data and uses it to
either accept or reject the null hypothesis; the
decision rule takes the form of stating the odds that
the observed phenomena could be the result of
chance. Although somewhat dictated by research
traditions in specific disciplines, the researcher is
free to choose a specific decision rule.
A variety of statistical tools have been developed
for a wide number of research situations which are
supported by computer programs. In a simplistic
example, the researcher may want to know if
having live entertainment in a hotel or beach bar
leads to higher profit. The researcher could
compare the profits from a random sample of
nights when there was entertainment and when no
entertainment was available. All variables except
entertainment should be held constant. Using
statistical analysis, the researcher could point to a
possible relationship between entertainment and
profits. Still, the researcher would have to demon