To fill a research gap, this paper aims to assess service quality for ferry transportation using the Servqual measurement scale. In doing so, the integration of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and importance and performance analysis (IPA) was developed to identify priority areas for improvement for ferry operations. Additionally, ferry operators (FOs) in the south of Vietnam were investigated to validate the proposed research model. The paper’s originality is as follows: first, this paper expands the Servqual framework to make it predictive of customer loyalty and satisfaction. Second, the integration of fuzzy set theory into AHP enables the capture of respondents’ subjective judgments in terms of service requirement attributes, thereby limiting biased and uncertain evaluation. Third, the utilisation of the IPA model allows FOs to identify priority areas for scarce resource allocation, thus contributing to the enhancement of ferry service quality and economic growth, which is relevant to UN SDG 3.
Pham et al. (Wed,) studied this question.