A commuter satisfaction survey on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway has indicated that while most people are satisfied with their overall experience, there are still some “pain areas” with room for improvement.
The survey conducted by IMRB International and commissioned by DSC Ltd, whose flagship project is the D-G expressway, attempted to assess commuter satisfaction with the expressway to spot “pain and delight areas” and to identify areas where improvement in service is required.
The survey covered four commuter segments: commercial and non-commercial vehicles besides tag users and cash payers. The sample covered in each segment was proportionate to the total number of commuters in each segment and also proportionally covered respondents across four time zones: morning and evening peak hours and afternoon and late night non-peak hours.
The total sample size was 823 respondents. They were asked to rate the overall quality of experience/service on a five-point scale. A respondent who rated good, very good and excellent was considered as satisfied customer and a respondent rating fair or poor was considered a dissatisfied customer.
While 98 per cent of the respondents expressed satisfaction at the overall quality of the road, 93 per cent appreciated the overall convenience of travel on the road and 87 per cent found the safety of travel on the road to be of their liking.
The questions posed to measure overall quality of the road were quality of road surface, cleanliness, width of the road/number of lanes and safety precautions on lanes closed for maintenance.
The figures for overall convenience of the expressway was arrived by asking commuters on time saved by using the expressway, adequate number of lanes for cash payers and tag users, waiting time in the queue at the toll plaza and speed of commute.
The parameters for assessing safety posed by the survey were adequacy and quality of fencing, adequacy of signages, lighting, crash barriers, blinkers, pedestrian over-bridges and subways.
The areas of concern raised by commuters include waiting time, queue management and the number of lanes at the toll plaza besides the number of pedestrian over-bridges and subways. Forty-eight per cent of the respondents pointed out the inadequate number of pedestrian over-bridges and 40 per cent pointed out long waiting time at toll plazas as grievances.
The survey also detected that tag users were not as happy as cash payers with the service at the toll plaza. The respondents in the survey who used the expressway during non-peak hours said the traffic management then required more attention.
Ninety-five per cent of the commuters approved of the speed of commuting, while 97 per cent expressed satisfaction with the time saved using the expressway.
