Citation

Poister TH, Harris RH, Robinson J. Public Works Manag. Policy 1998; 2(4): 294-305.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1087724X9800200403

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Public works agencies are focusing increasingly on the concepts of quality and customer service in response to growing demands for accountability and improved performance. In an effort to gauge customers' satisfaction with the services they provide, state transportation departments are beginning to solicit feedback from their customers to complement more traditional performance measures. This article reports the findings of a large-scale survey of the principal customers of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's highway maintenance program. The sample size and the disproportionally stratified sampling strategy were aimed at providing reliable data for 67 individual county-level maintenance units. The results indicate widespread variation in motorists' ratings of road quality, which correlate moderately with more traditional engineering-oriented measures of road quality, but it is clear that they offer a different perspective on service quality, which transportation departments will have to learn more about if they are serious about improving customer satisfaction.

Language: en