E-Z Pass - Electronic Toll Collection

ABSTRACT

This Professional Assignment paper consists of detailed and thorough study and critical analysis of a case study of E-Z Pass. This paper will critical analyze the case given and will answer few of the questions of evaluating the problem-definition process?, has the problem in the case been defined adequately so that a relevant decision statement can be written?, what type of research design would be suitable for this case, what other research questions can be tested and what is a dummy table and what might a dummy table include in this research proposal.

Introduction

The transportation agencies in the New York-New Jersey area created a task force in the 1990’s for a particular reason of investigating and assessing the feasibility and desirability of an electronic toll collection (ETC) via small transceivers device called tags which were provided to the commuters. The task force was most interested in identifying the ideal configuration of service attributes for each agency's commuters, and determining how similar or different these configurations might be across agencies. Six questions the task force identified were:

• How many accounts are necessary and what statements will be received?

• How and where does one pay for E-Z Pass?

• What lanes are available for use and how they are controlled?

• Is the tag transferable to other vehicles?

• What is the price of the tag and possible service charge?

• What are other possible um for the E-Z Pass tag (airport parking, gasoline purchases, and so forth)?

It seemed important from a researcher’s perspective to assess commuters demand for the service. From a researcher’s perspective, it also seemed important to assess commuter demand for the service, but the task force was not convinced that it needed a projection of demand because it was committed to implementing ETC regardless of initial commuter acceptance. The task force viewed its principal role to be investigating commuters’ preferences for how the service should be configured ideally. (Zikmund, Babin, Carr & Griffin, 2013)

Answer 1:

Problem definition can be said as how well the problems have been addressed in a clear and distinct way. Defining a problem helps an organization to achieve its objectives. The problem should be expressed in the form of questions so that it becomes easier finding the answers. The problem definition converts the business problems in to research problems. For any research to initiate the first step always is the identification of problem.