Analysis of Public Bus Transportation Mode: Social Economic Characteristics of Users, Service Quality, and Its Role in Bali Tourism Development (Competitive Grants)

Transportation is a very important need for the community. One of the problems that often occurs in every area, especially in urban areas, is traffic jams. Efforts to reduce traffic congestion, one solution is to reduce the use of private vehicles, and switch to public transportation modes. Real conditions in the field, interest and culture of the people in using public transportation are still very low. Until now, only the middle to lower class of society use public transportation services. Public transportation is still considered less attractive, because there are several shortcomings, especially in terms of comfort, security, speed, accuracy, convenience, frequency and schedule of departures, scheduled arrivals and arrivals of unscheduled transportation, not integrated, expensive rates, and facilities at terminals and bus stops. . This transportation problem really needs to get serious attention. Recommendations regarding the formulation and direction of transportation development policies that reach all levels of society are very important to be followed up by policy makers.

Based on this, several questions arise: What is the condition of the mode of public transportation in Bali Province ?; What are the socio-economic characteristics of the users ?; What are the travel characteristics of public bus transportation modes ?; What is the level of satisfaction of users of public bus transportation services ?; What factors determine user satisfaction ?; What factors should be considered in order to improve the quality of public bus services ?; What is the user's perception of the role of this bus transportation mode in supporting the development of Bali tourism? Based on some of these research questions, research on public bus transportation modes is very important to do. So that later a comprehensive policy model will be obtained for the Province of Bali in particular, and can become recommendations for other provinces that have similar transportation problems. This first year research aims to: (1) Know broadly the socio-economic characteristics of users of public bus transportation modes; (2) Knowing the factors that influence user community satisfaction with the quality of public bus transportation services; and (3) Knowing the variables that characterize the dominant factors that affect the satisfaction of the public using public bus transportation.

The first year research was conducted for public bus transportation between districts in Bali Province, namely between 8 districts and 1 city. This method of measuring the satisfaction of users of public bus transportation uses the customer satisfaction survey method. The data in this study are quantitative data obtained from primary sources, which are taken directly by the researcher using a questionnaire and questionnaire. The research sample was taken by purposive sampling, with the number of samples determined as many as 297 respondents. The variables used in this study are: socio-economic characteristics of users, travel characteristics, and service variables that determine customer satisfaction in this study, which are described in 25 questions.

The outputs of the first year research include: Information on the socio-economic characteristics of users; Public bus service quality factors; and the determinants of the quality of public transport services. The overall output obtained becomes a reference for formulating recommendations for revising policies on public bus transportation modes and improving service quality.

The socioeconomic characteristics of public bus transportation users in this study obtained that from a total of 297 respondents, 52% of the respondents were male, 54.2% were married. Most of the bus users (23.6% and 24.9%) are traders and private workers, while 19.2% are students. Based on the number of private vehicles owned, there were 72.7% of respondents who owned private vehicles.

The results of the factor analysis show that there are 6 factors that explain the satisfaction of public transportation users in Bali, with a total data diversity of 61,436%. These factors are: Safety and comfort; Responsiveness (responsiveness); Capacity; Tangible (tangible); Safety; Reliability. The dominant factors that affect customer satisfaction of public transportation users are safety and comfort, with the most influencing variable is the feeling of worrying about the user's personal safety while on the bus.