How Service Quality Impacts Customer Satisfaction in High-Speed Railway: Evidence from Guangzhou and the Moderating Role of Consumer Emotions

High-speed railway services represent complex service environments in which customers evaluate both functional performance and lived experience. Thus, this study investigates how high-speed railway service quality influences customer satisfaction, and further examines whether consumer emotions affect the relationship between them. Data were collected via an online survey of 558 customers with recent travel experience at major high-speed railway stations in Guangzhou. Service quality was captured via reliability, responsiveness, empathy, tangibility, and compensation; emotions were measured as positive and negative affects. Main and interaction effects were estimated using hierarchical regression. Findings suggest a strong positive link between overall service quality and satisfaction. Four of the five dimensions have significant positive effects, whereas compensation is not significant. In addition, positive emotions amplify the effects of all five service quality dimensions on satisfaction, while negative emotions reduce the effects of empathy, tangibility, and compensation on satisfaction but do not significantly affect the effects of reliability or responsiveness. Overall, satisfaction in a high-demand hub depends on dependable operations, timely support, considerate encounters, and well-maintained facilities, alongside emotional experience management to improve service management across the overall journey.