CAUSAL MODELLING

PAPER REVIEW
Research Question
According to the researchers, a transit service is characterized by a series of service factors
concerning different aspects such as service programming, reliability, comfort, information,
personnel, and so on. Therefore, transit quality depends on the quality levels of all the factors
describing a transit service. Customer satisfaction is one of the key determinants to measure
the quality of a service. The proposed research is just oriented to the measurement of transit
service quality based on the perceptions of the passengers. More specifically, the proposed
work aims to an investigation of the influence of a series of service quality attributes on the
overall service quality of a railway service. To do so the following research question was
formulated:

An investigation of the influence of a series of service quality attributes on the overall

service quality of a railway service with a proposed SEM model?

What for data is used?

The survey was drawn consisting of railway users in North Italy divided in users of 32
regional and 9 suburban lines and users of 2 express lines. The survey was conducted with a
two main structured section survey face-to-face interviews. The first part consisting general
train info and socio economic characteristics ( gender, age, travel habits).

In this paper this part was especially used for the constructing the SEM model.
The second part were aimed on the respondents’ view of offered and used transit services.
Specifically, users expressed importance and satisfaction rates, on a cardinal scale from 1 to
10, about 33 service quality factors concerning safety, cleanliness, main and additional
services, information, and personnel. Users also provided deeper information about some
railway services such as convenience of this kind of services compared to the others, or ticket
purchasing, or information services. The drawn sample was equally distributed between
genders and fairly between the working and the non-working age population (16-65year).
The occupation distribution for the biggest group of respondents were as follow: 40.4%
employee, Students (30.5%) 8.2 freelancers and managers (4.2%).

Which method is used?

The method that is used is the SEM (Structural Equitation Model). According to the auteurs,
this method allows the modelling of a phenomenon by considering both the unobserved
“latent” constructs and the observed indicators that describe the phenomenon. Structural
equation models are made up of two components: the first one describes the relationship
between endogenous and latent exogenous variables, and permits the evaluation of both
direction and strength of the causal effects among these variables (latent variable model); the
second component describes the relationship between latent and observed variables
(measurement model).
Review steps of building a measure model
Stage 1) Defining Individual Constructs
 Operationalizing the Constructs:
The first step here is that the constructs were defined by the literature review.
Further on the auteurs adopt users’ perceptions expressed in terms of satisfaction and
importance for verifying this influence and the presence of latent variables better explaining
these kinds of relationship

 New Scale Development:

Importance and satisfaction rates were expressed by the interviewed users, on a scale from 1
to 10, on 33 service quality attributes. In addition to reducing measurement error by
improving individual variables, the researchers of this article had chosen to develop
multivariate measurements, also known as summated scales, for which several variables are
joined in a composite measure to represent a concept The objective is to avoid the use of only
a single variable to represent a concept and instead to use several variables as indicators, all
representing differing facets of the concept to obtain a more well-rounded perspective. The
use of multiple indicators enables the researchers of this article to more precisely specify the
desired responses. It does not place total reliance on a single response, but instead on the
average or typical response to a set of related responses. The averages response are shown in
table 2 of this article and detailed information about this can be found in the section
importance and satisfaction rate.

 Pretesting:
The researchers of this article conducted a proposed SEM model for analysing passengers’
perceptions about railway services. The pretesting that was used was a case study in Italy
where there was taken a survey. They give in their conclusion that the research was about
railways services in Italian context. Specifically, in this work a railway service was analysed,
and in addition, a detailed and relevant number of service characteristics was investigated.
The obtained estimates can be used for improvement program for other railways services of
similar kind. However, given that the impact of each service attribute could largely vary from
one transit service to another also from one country to another or even from one region to
another. They have their conclusion that that the proposed framework can be generalized for
analysing any kind of service. This will provide a cost effective solution to achieve higher
passenger satisfaction and a tool for a better planning fund allocation.

Stage 2: Developing the Overall Measurement Model

We can say that uni-dimensionality can be supported because the factor loadings are above
0.40, but in this paper this is not specified if it is standardized or unstandardized. The
construct validity is achieved when the Fitness Indexes for a construct achieved the required
level. The level is below 0.95, thus construct validity is not achieved. Convergent Validity
and Discriminant validity are measured looking at the Average Variance extracted and
Modification Index. Both of these estimation is not seen in the paper.
 The indicators are above 3 indicators in each construct. In each factor there are three
indicators with high standardize loadings. This the three variable rule.
 The causal relation is reflective for the measurement model, thus from latent to
observed variables.
Stage 3: Designing a Study to Produce Empirical Results
 The type of data analyses is based on coefficients. But it is not given exactly if the
data analyses are correlations or covariance’s. But we assume that the coefficients in
table 3 in the last column are correlations, because the factor loadings are less 1. The
standardized regression weight is the item score equal to factor loading.
 There is no information about missing data.
 The sample size is 16,718 people. This is enough for 5 constructs or above.
 Estimation procedure is maximum likelihood estimation (ML)
 The computer software that is used is AMOS 4.0 package from Small Waters
Corporation.

Stage 4: Assessing the Measurement Model Validity

Name of category Name of index Level of acceptance

1. Absolute fit Chi-square p>0.05

RMSEA RMSEA < 0.05 : good fit

RMSEA < 0.08 : reasonable fit

RMSEA > 0.10 : poor fit

Root Mean Square residuals Lower values shows better fit and higher values represent
(RMR) worse fits

GFI The possible range of GFI values is 0 to 1, with higher values

indicating better fit. In the past, GFI values of greater than .90
typically were considered good. Others argue that .95 should be
used

2. Incremental fit CFI CFI > 0.95

TLI TLI > 0.95

NFI It is a ratio of the difference in the χ2 value for the fitted model
and a null model divided by the χ2 value for the null model. It
ranges between 0 and 1, and a model with perfect fit would
produce an NFI of 1
According to the authors of the papers: Fit indices points to a reasonably good quality of the
overall model. The GFI (Goodness of fit index) is .648, NFI (Normed fit index) is .770, TLI
(Tucker-Lewis index) is .754, CFI (Comparative fit index) is.717; besides, RMR (Root mean
residual) is lower than 1.8 and RMEA (Root mean square error of approximation) is .108.
The conclusion is wrong. In the table I show us that the GFI index is below 0.90 or 0.95. The
TLI and CFI index is below 0.95. The RMSEA show is that there is a poor fit. Overall the
conclusion is that the quality of the overall model is not of good quality (model is not ideal).
The solution to get a better (adjusted) model is to estimate modification indices.

Stage 5: Specifying the Structural Model

 From the measurement model to a structural model is not drawn in a path diagram but
in a table. In the text is also given how to measure module goes to a structural model.
Structural equation models are made up of two components: the first one describes the
relationship between endogenous and latent exogenous variables, and permits the
evaluation of both direction and strength of the causal effects among these variables
(latent variable model); the second component describes the relationship between
latent and observed variables (measurement model). We will prefer to use a path
diagram for the measure model and structural model.
 The justification of the causal relationships in the structural model is shown in table 3.
The justification of correlation are not shown.

Stage 6: Assessing Structural Model Validity

Goodness-of-fit measures of this step is missing. We don’t see this in the results.

Overall Conclusion:
In conclusion, we can review that this paper has some important steps missing. The
measuring model is not validity. All good of fitness scores are below criterion. The structural
model is not estimated for fitness. We also do not see a path diagram, only a table were
variables are linked to each other. In the next paragraph we will drawn a path/ SEM diagram.
The observed variables (33 in total) are the boxes .It is named X1 until X33 (for
further detailed information look table 3 article). The latent exogenous variables are (7):
Safety, Cleanliness, Comfort, Service, Additional Services, Personnel and Information. The
latent endogen variable is Service Quality and the observed endogenous variables are
Importance and Satisfaction. In the diagram is shown the causal relation between
latent variables and observed variables. There is also causal (direct) relation between de
endogenous latent variable and exogenous latent variable. All the arrows show a direct
relationship between the variables. In this article there was not shown any correlation
between latent variables. In red (correlation lines) we gave our own correlations between the
latent exogenous variables. In our assumption there is a correlation between Cleanliness and
Comfort. If everything is clean at a railway than you feel more comfortable. The second
correlation that we found is between Cleanliness and Service. If you are satisfied with the
Cleanliness than you are also satisfied about the Services. The third correlation what we have
found is between Safety and Comfort. If you feel Safety, you also feel Comfortable.
Explain the coëfficiënten in the path model / sem
Measurement model: Overall al latent exogenous variables with standardized coefficients
had high correlation above 0.40 in relation to the observed variables (X1-X33).
Structural model: Between de latent endogenous and latent exogenous variables.
Cleanliness (0.508) and Services (0.507) had a big impact on Service quality, whereas the
other latent exogenous variables has less impact on Service quality. Between the endogenous
latent variable and Observed endogenous variable, the Service quality has a big affect (0.525)
on Satisfaction and less impact on Importance.