Evaluating Bus Lines by using Geospatial Information System and Data Envelopment Analysis: A Case Study of Tehran Bus Lines

Tehran Bus Transit System involves with two types of problems. The first type of problems is the performance-based problems, such as high fuel consumption, fast depreciation of the buses, … etc. Second type problems are spatial problems, such as unsuitable selection of bus routes and stops, the discontent of travel demand, … etc. In this paper, the efficiency of bus routes is evaluated by integrating Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and Geographic Information System (GIS), from two viewpoints: performance-based and spatial problems. The parameters of number of bus stops, daily fuel consumption as input indexes and the number of passengers, the number of children and the aged people as well as the number of disabled people are selected as output indexes. The spatial data are prepared by GIS. Afterwards, the efficiency of decision making units (bus routes) is calculated using the DEA method and the more efficient routes are determined. In this model, the weights of the attributes are not required to be entered by the user; they are determined by DEA model, itself. After running the DEA model, spatial and performance-related efficiencies are calculated. The results show that, among the fourteen routes, five routes have high performance-related efficiency and three routes have high efficiency.