Performance Management of Public Transportation by the Network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Model

Public transportation and bus route management is a serious challenge for any city, and its efficiency is an important problem for cities and transport agencies. Routing of public transport systems is also a very complex issue that affects not only the performance efficiency and the construction or operation costs, but also the performance indicators such as passenger transport, travel speed, and savings in travel time. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is an optimization-based method that is widely used to measure the relative performance efficiency of public transportation systems. This paper attempts to evaluate the performance of bus routes in a public transportation system using the two-stage DEA model. A conceptual framework for performance appraisal is presented and appropriate input and output indicators are selected to calculate the performance efficiency and service efficiency of each route. The performance of the achievement (model) is then analyzed and the bus routes that need to be reconfigured and optimized are identified. Ten bus routes in Tehran have been selected for practical applications.