Market Segmentation and Development Strategies for Highway Passenger Transport Based on Measurement Model of Passenger Value

Abstract

The passenger value is used to segment the intercity passenger transport market. According to its advantages or disadvantages in each submarket, highway passenger transport (referred to as “highway mode” hereafter) is positioned to generate business strategies for operators. First, a model is built to analyze the value measuring elements with passenger expectation, actual perception quality, and service repair as cause variables, and their behavioral intention as the outcome variable. Then the intercity passenger transport market is divided into four sub markets (economical, service-oriented, prudent, and efficiency-oriented) based on the measured values and sample passenger data from Dalian to Shenyang, and by using factor analysis and K-means cluster. Finally, the role of the highway mode is repositioned based on the service attributes that passengers in each submarket are concerned with. The development strategies of the highway mode in the new context are discussed in terms of maintaining and expanding advantages, increasing efficiency, and improving service quality.