Transport Service Quality and Social Responsibility through the Relationship Marketing

This paper focuses on marketing for passenger transport based on the research concerned with urban sustainable development and mobility issues and it is oriented to the conceptual discussion of Relationship Marketing to be adopted in transport policy in consonance of another productive sectors. At first, there are made comments on reasons for development of marketing strategies applications, necessary all over the world. Although some differences between the developed and developing countries are picked out, it becomes evident that new approach for marketing passenger transport is necessary and quite urgent, giving that it should be oriented not only to the market behavior, but also it should involve different actors being called to social accountability. A short review of state-of-the-art and state-of-the-practice in transport marketing, analyzing some critical aspects inherited to the transit service marketing, provides also comments on outstanding importance of social and economic activities as determinants for travel needs and travel behavior. In this context it is brought up a concept of Relationship Marketing, conceived from service marketing field. The main characteristics of this concept consist in pro-active behavior of different, public and private actors, including consumers, local communities, public agencies, transit operators, and non transport businesses. This kind of co-marketing, based on partnership, results in provision of service packages, comprising basic, facilitating, and supporting services, adapted to the clientcitizens’ needs, trying to retain them on transit. This approach, build on spatial activities’ network partnership, seems to have a good potential for urban management applications. There is also commented an Integrated Mobility Management Model based on Relationship Marketing, which tripartite framework should articulate management of activities production and accessibility production, both oriented to the client-citizens consumption and welfare.