Evaluating Comfort for Public Buses in Dhaka City

Abstract

In this research, a combined approach was undertaken to evaluate the comfort for public buses in Dhaka city. Public buses are the most used transport in Dhaka city. Though several studies were done before on the public buses in Dhaka on safety, cost, timeliness etc.; no comprehensive study had been done regarding comfort. This study is thus a pioneering step toward comfort analysis. In this dissertation both the measurement of physical parameters through mechanical approach and subjective parameters through questionnaire survey were conducted. It was found that speed, temperature, noise and jerking were the most significant physical parameters influencing comfort. These physical parameters were translated to subjective feelings with numerical values by using multiple linear regression analysis. A comfort model for public bus was thus developed by correlating the subjective opinions of passengers to the objective physical parameters. This research leads to a prime finding, where public buses in Dhaka are „slightly uncomfortable‟ or „uncomfortable‟. It also signifies the impact of temperature and jerking on the overall comfort feeling in public buses. A more in-depth analysis of the major routes of Dhaka city can be done for future researches to develop a more convenient model of comfortbased on this study. A comprehensive comfort model would aid at national level traffic comfort improvement through better design of public vehicles and traffic routes, which could help improve the overall bus service quality