# Perceived Accessibility: Impact of Social Factors and Travel Modes in Melbourne's West
## 3 Results
### Perceived Service Quality  
Like safety, PCA was used to summarise the indicators of perceived service quality, assessed based on the SERVQUAL framework [24]. The KMO = 0.770 and [PERSON]'s test of sphericity (\(X^{2}\) = 906.642, df = 120, \(p\) < 0.001) confirmed the suitability of PCA [25] (see Appendix A.4). Using the varimax rotation method, four components were extracted, reflecting functionality, assurance, usability, and communication, as listed in Table 8. Functionality represents quality aspects relating to cleanliness and air conditioning of the vehicles, as well as the connection, frequency, and accessibility of services to all, including vulnerable people. Assurance concerns the characteristics of the drivers based on experience, service/assistance, politeness, and neatness. Usability refers to the user friendliness in relation to payments (myki), routes, and timetabling information, whereas communication assesses the promptness in communicating planned and unplanned disruptions, as well as availability of real-time service information. Table 8 presents the descriptive statistics of these four components and constituent indicators of measures.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c} \hline \hline
**Component/Variable** & **Mean** & **SD** \\ \hline
**Functionality** & **2.99** & **0.750** \\ C14. Connection of public transport service is adequate. & 2.62 & 1.109 \\ C13. The frequency of public transport service is adequate. & 2.69 & 1.151 \\ C9. Public transport is always clean. & 2.94 & 0.921 \\ C10. Air conditioning on board is appropriate (not too cold or hot). & 3.32 & 0.819 \\ C11. Public transport is accessible to all (including disabled and older adults). & 3.36 & 1.035 \\
**Asurance** & **3.90** & **0.498** \\ C5. Drivers are always polite. & 3.81 & 0.623 \\ C8. Drivers appear neat and idy. & 3.87 & 0.546 \\ C6. Drivers are skiful and experienced in driving. & 3.76 & 0.704 \\ C17. Drivers are ready to assist passengers. & 3.76 & 0.602 \\
**Usability** & **3.92** & **0.480** \\ C15. Top-up service for myki cards is user-friendly. & 4.03 & 0.611 \\ C16. Touch on service to pay public transport fate is user-friendly. & 4.11 & 0.618 \\ C12. Information about public transport routes is easy to find. & 3.71 & 0.813 \\ C3. Public transport service information and timetables are available at public transport stations/stops. & 3.83 & 0.680 \\
**Communication** & **3.23** & **0.658** \\ C19. Unplanned public transport not in service is communicated promptly. & 2.82 & 0.912 \\ C4. Real-time public transport service information/timetables are readily available. & 3.63 & 0.804 \\ C18. Planned public transport not in service is communicated in advance. & 3.22 & 0.877 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 8: Summary statistics of perceived service quality components and indicators.  
As shown in Table 8, usability and assurance were the two components of perceived service quality most highly ranked in the study area. Thus, the driver services, payment, and information about the schedules were deemed to be above average for perceived service quality. In contrast, functionality and communication components were ranked the lowest and the second-lowest, as public transport is hampered by the poor connection, frequency, accessibility, and communication of the service. In Melbourne's growing suburbs, research indicates that the waiting times to supply ideal public transport services to residents are considerably long, which partly explains why respondents condemned its functioning in assessing the perceived service quality [18]. The communication of unplanned public transport service outage also received a very low ranking (C19), which has to be addressed.