Understanding Customer Expectations for Premium Rail Services: A Study of Vande Bharat Express

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Onboard Amenities; Premium Rail Experience; Customer Experience

Abstract

Premium rail services in India have largely emphasized speed and technological advancement; however, passenger evaluation of such services depends on how value is experienced during the journey. This study examines how onboard physical amenities and onboard service experiences influence customer satisfaction and willingness to pay for the Vande Bharat Express, with hedonic and utilitarian value acting as mediating mechanisms. Building on insights from qualitative study that confirmed key experiential constructs, the research adopts a quantitative approach and focuses exclusively on onboard facilities, as offboard premium facilities are not yet consistently available for measurement. Survey data were collected from 224 passengers who had travelled on the Vande Bharat Express and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that onboard physical amenities exert a stronger influence than onboard service experiences in shaping passenger value perceptions. Hedonic value plays a more prominent role in explaining customer satisfaction, while utilitarian value is more influential in determining willingness to pay, suggesting that emotional comfort and functional efficiency operate through distinct evaluative pathways. The study contributes to premium rail service literature by empirically validating a value-based framework that explains how onboard experiences translate into passenger satisfaction and fare acceptance. The findings offer practical insights for experience design, service planning, and value-based pricing within India’s emerging semi-high-speed rail network.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Raja Mukhopadhyay
AU  - Mista Roy Chowdhury
AU  - Harsh Jadhav
AU  - A. Vinaya
AU  - Karan Nilesh Radia
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/26
TI  - Understanding Customer Expectations for Premium Rail Services: A Study of Vande Bharat Express
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Infrastructure Development and Sustainability (ICIDS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 19
EP  - 42
SN  - 3005-155X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_3
ID  - Mukhopadhyay2026
ER  -