國道客運公司品牌印象對消費者選擇行為之影響

Abstract

隨著國道客運的發展，消費者可選擇的客運公司也越來越多。業者為了吸引更多乘客前來搭乘，不斷努力推出與別家不同的服務，期望能獲得更多利益。然而在這激烈競爭的情況下，如何提升自己的優勢，抓住乘客的偏好成為了最重要的議題。 然而乘客如何選擇客運公司？哪些因素影響乘客的選擇？本研究先以消費者對國道客運品牌印象的調查，建立國道客運之市場定位，並且找出影響客運公司定位的原因。如此一來客運業者可以掌握乘客是如何做決定的，並且推出會受乘客喜愛的各項行銷方案，進一步提升營收。 然而影響市場定位的原因有很多，本文根據問卷調查一般民眾對國道客運品牌印象，進一步利用多元尺度分析推估市場定位知覺圖，給予知覺圖座標軸合理的定義。並將其帶入羅吉特模式進行消費者選擇行為的推估。本研究共使用三種模式，分別是多項、巢式與混合羅吉特模式，期望藉由不同的模式找出對消費者行為解釋能力最佳之方法。利用基礎的多項羅吉特模式為基準，探討方案間可能存在的相關性並使用巢式羅吉特模式。又因不同消費者對於票價、品牌印象等想法略有不同，考量個體異質性而使用混和羅吉特模式。模式中共生變數包含乘客搭乘客運的成本，以及利用多元尺度分析找出的市場定位的因素─客運公司知名度與服務品質。方案特定變數則由受訪者的旅次特性與社經變數組成，藉此研究不同背景的乘客偏好的客運公司。 經由模式推估可發現混和羅吉特模式在考量個體異質性的推估結果最佳，故可由此模式找出合理的解釋變數，計算選擇機率與彈性，進一步給予客運公司合適的行銷策略與建議。

Along with the rapid development of freeway bus service, passengers always enjoy a variety of choices from different bus companies. In order to attract more passengers, the bus companies also keep enhancing their service quality and uniqueness towards profit and market share maximization. However, how to understand passenger preferences so as to propose effective strategies has become the most important issue. How do passengers choose bus companies? What are the factors influencing passengers choice behaviors? Numerous studies have been conducted and many factors have been successfully identified. However, it can be observed that many passengers make their choices based on their own image on the chosen bus companies, which is a latent variable hard to be directly measured. Based on this, this study attempts to extract the image of passengers on freeway bus companies from their ratings on them by the multi-dimensional scaling model and then incorporate the extracted image variable into the choice model to investigate the effect of image on passenger choice behaviors. As to the choice model, three types of logit models, multinomial logit model (MNL), nested logit model (NL), and mixed logit model (MXL), are used and compared. To estimate the models, a questionnaire survey was conducted at Taipei and Taichung freeway bus terminals. A total of 305 valid questionnaires were obtained for model estimation. The image variable is first estimated based on their ratings on bus companies. As to the choice model, the explanatory variables include generic variables of travel cost and image and alternative specific variables composed by trip characteristics and social economic variables. The estimation results show that the MXL model performs best and the image variable does have significant effect on passenger choice behaviors. At last, some improvement strategies for freeway bus companies are then proposed accordingly.