Urban mobility and resilient city planning: continuity of rail services and commuters’ behavior in Greater Kuala Lumpur

Purpose The goal of this study is to determine how passengers’ behavioral intentions toward city rail transit in Greater Kuala Lumpur are influenced by service quality, perceived service continuity and customer happiness. In addition to offering implications for resilient urban mobility and sustainable city design, it delves deeper into the mediating role of consumer satisfaction in the relationship between service quality and commuter loyalty. Design/methodology/approach A structured questionnaire was employed in the quantitative research design to gather information from 254 genuine respondents. To investigate the proposed correlations and evaluate the mediating effects of each study construct, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed. Findings The empirical findings demonstrate that customer satisfaction is strongly impacted by service quality: ß = 0.873, t = 76.136 and p < 0.01. Additionally, behavioral intention is strongly influenced by satisfaction (ß = 0.914, t = 108.096 and p < 0.01). However, complete meditation through customer satisfaction was supported at ß = 0.798, t = 55.357 and p < 0.01, whereas the direct effect of service quality on behavioral intention was not significant at ß = 0.07 and p > 0.05. Behavioral intention was not directly significantly impacted by perceived service continuity. Practical implications The study showed that commuter satisfaction and loyalty may rise dramatically by enhancing the concrete, dependable, sympathetic and reassuring aspects of rail service quality. Rail operators and authorities should prioritize safety, timeliness, cleanliness and digital responsiveness to lessen dependency on private vehicles and advance Malaysia’s SDGs. Originality/value This study provides a novel explanatory model of commuter decision-making in a developing-city setting by combining the SERVQUAL and TPB frameworks. To create robust, user-centric and sustainable rail systems in Malaysia and similar emerging countries, the study confirms that customer satisfaction is a crucial mediator between service quality and behavioral intention.