Assessment of Satisfaction with the Quality of Urban Management Services in Marginal Regions (Case Study: Islamabad City Karaj)

Document Type : Research article

Author

Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Planning, Payame Noor University, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
The Islamabad of Karaj is one of the fine-grained and interconnecting urban area and one of the most problematic areas in Karaj City. Most residents of these tissues are benefited from direct and indirect urban management services. This research has been carried out in Islsmabad as a metropolitan area with urban services in the city of Karaj. Accordingly, the overall objective of this research is to measure residents' satisfaction with the quality of services in the Islamabad neighborhood of Karaj. The overall objective of this research is to:

Provide a functional model for assessing the quality of services provided by urban management
Determine the citizens' satisfaction with the quality of services provided in the Islamabad neighborhood of Karaj

Based on the above objectives, the question arises whether urban management has been able to meet the expectations and perceptions of citizens in the Islamabad neighborhood in different dimensions.
The hypothesis states that there is a statistically significant difference between the type of service provided by urban management in the current situation and the expected perceptions of the quality of services provided in the five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model.
Methodology
The statistical population of the study is rural people in Islsmabad. The sample size is 328 according to Cochran formula. The main tool for collecting field research data is a questionnaire which asks the dimensions of the quality of SERVQUAL services based on the surveys conducted by the authors and the requirements of services provided by urban management by the researchers to measure it from the scale of PARASURAMAN and its colleagues. Hence, the respondents' expectations and drafts of urban management services were evaluated in five dimensions of sensitivity, reliability, assurance, response and empathy. For statistical analysis, we used nonparametric tests, Friedman tests, T test and pair test.
Results and discussion
There is a significant difference between the average satisfactions of respondents with their expectations. As their level of literacy has increased, their expectations have also been increased. Therefore, it can be added that the highest level of service quality gaps in the SERVQUAL model belongs to a group with a university degree and the lowest gap is related to those who have highlighted primary level of education.
The difference between the average expectations and perceptions of citizens about the effectiveness of urban management performance in creating judicial justice is significant at 99% confidence level. It can be said that urban management, in general, failed to meet the expectations and demands of citizens. For the final analysis and ranking of the SERVQUAL model components, the expectations of respondents about the dimensions of the effectiveness of urban management performance have been used through Friedman ranking test.
The non-parametric WILCOXON test has been used to assess the significance of the effectiveness of urban management practices on the quality of urban services. Urban management has only been able to meet the expectations of residents living in the context and in other dimensions the average expectations are significantly higher than the average perceptions of respondents.  The statistical analysis of the data shows that the highest level of service quality gap belongs to the SERVQUAL model's empathic dimension, which can make it difficult for the management to have access to long-term urban management problems. The quality gap in accountability implies that citizens do not have easy access to city executives to state their opinions, criticisms and suggestions in various areas. The quality gap in terms of assurance shows that the performance of promised services and the provision of services have not been fully operational as soon as possible and the behavior of managers has failed to meet the expectations of citizens living in Islamabad.
Conclusion
Therefore, the present study seeks to find an applied model of the SERVQUAL method to measure citizens' satisfaction with the quality of services offered by urban management. The findings of this study showed that SERVQUAL model is an appropriate tool to measure the quality of services provided in the Islamabad neighborhood of Karaj. The results of this research showed that the dimensions of the quality of urban services can be ranked in importance for the urban population of urban texture. Thus, one can assess the quality of urban services from the citizen's point of view. The results of this study showed that there is a significant difference between the satisfaction levels of the subjects with individual characteristics, so that with an increase in the level of literacy, the level of citizen’s expectations can also increase and their level of perceptions can decrease. In fact, respondents have a very different level of education, perception, and expectation of urban management services according to their type of job. This has been very influential on their satisfaction with the quality of urban services. With increase in levels of citizenship, their expectations are increased, and the highest quality service gap in the SERVQUAL model belongs to the group that has university education. Statistical analysis and inference from the content of the questionnaire indicate that there is a gap between the expectations and the perceptions of respondents in all aspects of the quality of service. In the SERVQUAL model, accountability means willingness to help customers and provide instant services to them. The existing gap suggests that citizens do not have easy access to urban management for their ideas and suggestions on urban issues. The gap in the accountability dimension implies that citizens cannot conveniently have access to urban managers and that citizens are not able to talk to urban management about their ideas and criticisms of various civil, social, and economic issues in urban neighborhoods.  

Keywords

References

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Geographical Urban Planning Research (GUPR)
Volume 6, Issue 2
July 2018
Pages 289-306

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