Evaluating the performance of urban service units of Isfahan municipality by using data coverage analysis

Considering the role of municipalities in the quality and increase of citizens' living standards, evaluating their performance is very important. In the meantime, Isfahan municipality's urban services department and its subordinate offices need to plan, increase performance, and measure efficiency due to their central role in providing services to the people. Data envelopment analysis is a non-parametric linear programming method for measuring the relative efficiency of organizational units. In this research, the relative efficiency of urban service departments in 15 districts of Isfahan municipality has been analyzed for a one-year period using the output-oriented BCC model, and then the strategies to increase the level of performance of each unit were determined based on the improvement of inputs and outputs. At the end, the cross-efficiency method and the aggressive method have been used to rank the efficient units, which is considered the innovative aspect of the current research. The evaluation of the performance of the municipalities in the current research has been done by considering four output variables (urban furniture and beautification, special decorations for occasions, lighting, urban art and murals) and one input variable (budget allocated to the municipality of each region). The results of the research indicate that the urban service departments of regions 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 15 are effective with an efficiency score of 1, and the ranking of the units using the aggressive method showed that the best efficiency is related to unit 3.