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Analysing passengers' expectation towards KTMB railways catering
S.M.A. Azid, M. Ramli, R.P.S. Raja-Abdullah, L. Benedict-Jipiu & N. Baba
Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: In Peninsular Malaysia, the railway sector especially train as a mode of transportation is
relevant with our current economic situation. The rail sector in Malaysia can be divided into 3 main areas
which are the Freight Services, Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB) Intercity Passenger Services and
KTM (Keretapi Tanah Melayu) Services. Other than business of rail transportation, maintaining and
managing the system to serve, KTMB has also involved in their own foodservice catering operation that
includes preparing and transporting food for off-site catering. In its catering situation, the challenging
aspects of food delivery add to the necessity of proper food handling. Operating as a catering business,
responsibility for ensuring safe food with high quality products is important for the consumption of the
passengers on board. This research aims to analyze passenger's expectation towards the KTMB food on
board railways catering.
Keywords :
KTMB, catering, expectation, passengers'
1 INTRODUCTION
Besides that, the food production is being out-
sourced by other food contractors and suppliers
to provide meals for the passengers. He added
that some passengers who board the train were
complaining on the types of food sold which does
not meet their expectations. Therefore, in order to
overcome this problem, as a Manager of Food and
Beverage he is responsible for choosing and find-
ing the newest types of menu that will be sold on
board train.
He stated that he had to go through several
stages of processes before could come out with a
valid menu. Rasali and Mustapha (2013, Novem-
ber 11) reported that each contractor that under-
signed a contract with KTMB does not last more
than a year due to unprofitable food business.
This study helps to relate the customers' expec-
tations from boarding the train with the independ-
ent variables such as i) types of food served which
determined the variety of menu offered, price, food
quality and food packaging and; ii) atmospheric
elements which identified the suitability of color,
lighting, design, layout and temperature criteria. It
also helps to attract passengers not only among the
local people, but also tourists from abroad.
The KTMB services are even more challenging
where it operates 24 Intercity Passenger Trains
daily where 16 express trains and 8 local trains
were involved. In addition, there are 206 Com-
muter Train Services operated daily between Mon-
day and Friday, 213 services on Saturday and 177
services operated on Sunday and public holidays,
39 stations and halt along between the Rawang-
Seremban and Sentul-Port Klang sectors. KTMB
also operates Freight Trains supporting key mari-
time industry players in the international container
movement with the launching of containerized
Land Bridge Services between Klang Valley and
Bangkok.
Law (2011) stated that the food catering serv-
ice for KTMB is more challenging than the other
catering services because the service providers have
to secure the expected service level with the mate-
rial availability which were involves with the long
distance travelling. Hence, all foods need to be kept
proper by avoiding the occurrence of food contam-
ination on board. Passengers' satisfaction is said to
be very important and should be given more prior-
ity. Based on an interview with Mr. Roslan Bin Ras-
ali the Manager of Food and Beverage in KTMB,
the company have a catering license, however, start-
ing from year 2010 until to-date, they have only one
single catering operation in the coach. The KTMB
have yet to apply HACCP certification thus they
will definitely improve in developing a new catering
center onboard train in the future.
2 LITERATURE REVIEWS
2.1 Food
People generally choose rice because it is a form
of carbohydrate and also can fill up one's stomach
(Babu, Subhasree, Bhakyaraj & Vidhyalakshmi,
 
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