Measuring transit service reliability using data from web-based transit user survey : a case study at Brisbane, Australia

This paper reports an empirical study on measuring transit service reliability using the data from a Web-based passenger survey on a major transit corridor in Brisbane, Australia. After an introduction of transit service reliability measures, the paper presents the results from the case study including study area, data collection, and reliability measures obtained. This includes data exploration of boarding/arrival lateness, in-vehicle time variation, waiting time variation, and headway adherence. Impacts of peak-period effects and separate operation on service reliability are examined. Relationships between transit service characteristics and passenger waiting time are also discussed. A summary of key findings and an agenda of future research are offered in conclusions.

Empirical research in business process management : introduction to the special issue

In this editorial letter, we provide the readers of Information Systems and e-Business Management with an introduction to Business Process Management and the challenges of empirical research in this field. We then briefly describe selected examples of current research efforts in this fields and how the papers accepted for this special issue contribute to extending our body of knowledge.

Defending web services against denial of service attacks using client puzzles

The interoperable and loosely-coupled web services architecture, while beneficial, can be resource-intensive, and is thus susceptible to denial of service (DoS) attacks in which an attacker can use a relatively insignificant amount of resources to exhaust the computational resources of a web service. We investigate the effectiveness of defending web services from DoS attacks using client puzzles, a cryptographic countermeasure which provides a form of gradual authentication by requiring the client to solve some computationally difficult problems before access is granted. In particular, we describe a mechanism for integrating a hash-based puzzle into existing web services frameworks and analyze the effectiveness of the countermeasure using a variety of scenarios on a network testbed. Client puzzles are an effective defence against flooding attacks. They can also mitigate certain types of semantic-based attacks, although they may not be the optimal solution.

Consumer misbehaviour during professional service encounters

To date, consumer behaviour research is still over-focused on the functional rather than the dysfunctional. Both empirical and anecdotal evidence suggest that service organisations are burdened with the concept of consumer sovereignty, while consumers freely flout the ‘rules’ of social exchange and behave in deviant and dysfunctional ways. Further, the current scope of consumer misbehaviour research suggests that the phenomenon has principally been studied in the context of economically-focused exchange. This limits our current understanding of consumer misbehaviour to service encounters that are more transactional than relational in nature. Consequently, this thesis takes a Social Exchange approach to consumer misbehaviour and reports a three-stage multi-method study that examined the nature and antecedents of consumer misbehaviour in professional services. It addresses the following broad research question: What is the nature of consumer misbehaviour during professional service encounters? Study One initially explored the nature of consumer misbehaviour in professional service encounters using critical incident technique (CIT) within 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The study was designed to develop a better understanding of what constitutes consumer misbehaviour from a service provider’s perspective. Once the nature of consumer misbehaviour had been qualified, Study Two focused on developing and refining calibrated items that formed Guttman-like scales for two consumer misbehaviour constructs: one for the most theoretically-central type of consumer misbehaviour identified in Study One (i.e. refusal to participate) and one for the most well-theorised and salient type of consumer misbehaviour (i.e. verbal abuse) identified in Study One to afford a comparison. This study used Rasch modelling to investigate whether it was possible to calibrate the escalating severity of a series of decontextualised behavioural descriptors in a valid and reliable manner. Creating scales of calibrated items that capture the variation in severity of different types of consumer misbehaviour identified in Study One allowed for a more valid and reliable investigation of the antecedents of such behaviour. Lastly, Study Three utilised an experimental design to investigate three key antecedents of consumer misbehaviour: (1) the perceived quality of the service encounter [drawn from Fullerton and Punj’s (1993) model of aberrant consumer behaviour], (2) the violation of consumers’ perceptions of justice and equity [drawn from Rousseau’s (1989) Psychological Contract Theory], and (3) consumers’ affective responses to exchange [drawn from Weiss and Cropanzano’s (1996) Affective Events Theory]. Investigating three key antecedents of consumer misbehaviour confirmed the newly-developed understanding of the nature of consumer misbehaviour during professional service encounters. Combined, the results of the three studies suggest that consumer misbehaviour is characteristically different within professional services. The most salient and theoretically-central behaviours can be measured using increasingly severe decontextualised behavioural descriptors. Further, increasingly severe forms of consumer misbehaviour are likely to occur as a response to consumer anger at low levels of interpersonal service quality. These findings have a range of key implications for both marketing theory and practice.

The impact of software-as-a-service on business models of leading software vendors : experiences from three exploratory case studies

The number of software vendors offering ‘Software-as-a-Service’ has been increasing in recent years. In the Software-as-a-Service model software is operated by the software vendor and delivered to the customer as a service. Existing business models and industry structures are challenged by the changes to the deployment and pricing model compared to traditional software. However, the full implications on the way companies create, deliver and capture value are not yet sufficiently analyzed. Current research is scattered on specific aspects, only a few studies provide a more holistic view of the impact from a business model perspective. For vendors it is, however, crucial to be aware of the potentially far reaching consequences of Software-as-a-Service. Therefore, a literature review and three exploratory case studies of leading software vendors are used to evaluate possible implications of Software-as-a-Service on business models. The results show an impact on all business model building blocks and highlight in particular the often less articulated impact on key activities, customer relationship and key partnerships for leading software vendors and show related challenges, for example, with regard to the integration of development and operations processes. The observed implications demonstrate the disruptive character of the concept and identify future research requirements.

A spoofing detection method for civilian L1 GPS and the E1-B Galileo Safety of Life service

This paper describes an effective method for signal-authentication and spoofing detection for civilian GNSS receivers using the GPS L1 C/A and the Galileo E1-B Safety of Life service. The paper discusses various spoofing attack profiles and how the proposed method is able to detect these attacks. This method is relatively low-cost and can be suitable for numerous mass-market applications. This paper is the subject of a pending patent.