Tinngo’s Greek Hub under Lever’s Development Consultants is conducting a mystery shopping survey in order to assess Thessaloniki’s bus transportation system. Comfort and customer service as well as safety and security are the main components to be identified, evaluated and analysed in regard to female transport users. Additionally, the needs of the elderly, pregnant and immigrant women will be highlighted.
Lever, coordinator of the Greek Hub, designed the survey and its contents and planned the methodology to be implemented. Indicative bus lines were selected in order to achieve significant coverage of the city’s area and mystery shoppers were assigned to specific bus lines. The mystery shoppers behaved as normal passengers while travelling around the city using the city’s bus services while additionally identifying and filling the evaluation forms previously designed.
Approximately 20 bus lines were selected and the mystery shoppers travelled throughout the city for four weekdays among three different weeks during peak hour periods both at morning as well as during the evening (08:00-11:00, 15:00-18:00). The evaluation form was designed based on existing literature review and it includes information such as:
- General information (time, date, weather conditions, etc.)
- Information on the bus station/bus stop (cleanliness, vandalism, bus schedule, etc.)
- Information regarding the bus operation (arrival latency, route comfort, bus cleanliness, etc.)
Through this evaluation form the identified parameters were identified and assessed in order to analyse the level of comfort, safety and security as perceived by the mystery shoppers. The results of the survey will be publically available by April 2020. They will be further used to highlight the issue of gendered equal access in the city of Thessaloniki and initiate discussions with relevant stakeholders.
