The number of passengers of Dar es Salaam Commuter Train has been decreased day
to day and suspensions of services due to mechanical faults make operation to be
hard. In this context, this study examined the factors that would influence good
services as well as attracting more riders to commuter train to achieve sustainability
in reducing traffic congestion in the city of Dar es Salaam. Since it is the only
Commuter Train provider in Tanzania, the sustainability in reducing traffic
congestion in the city of Dar es Salaam depends on the number of riderships or
passengers and how Dar commuter train can be improved in its service. So a better
understanding of train commuter travel behavior will enable the enhancement of
commuter rail services to increase ridership and achieve some of the sustainability
goals that government and TRL are trying to. Data from respondents in six selected
Dar Commuter Train stations were used to assess the sustainability in correctly
classifying service status via quality, reliability, comfort, and station facilities.
Dependent variable in this study was sustainability in reducing traffic congestion and
independent variables considered were quality of service, reliability of the train
travel comfort, and station facilities. Data were collected through primary and secondary data. A random sample of 200
commuters was chosen for this study on board the train and those waiting for the
train were interviewed using structured questionnaires and among them 165 were
finalized for final analysis This result based on the customer perception and it was
found that passenger’s perception on comfort (81.6%), and quality of the service
71.5% of the commuters agreed with the service offered by Dar commuter train but
very poor conditions of station facilities 28% are available, 51% of commuters said
the service is not reliable. All these two among four variables couldn’t attract more
passengers to use train. Several recommendations have been made to improve the
Service of Dar commuter train so as to reduce congestion by attracting more
passengers even the user of automobile to shift to this mode, includes the use of
modern equipments, government intervention etc and the study shows that the train
will be sustainable if some improvement must be done.