IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceps/v78y2021ics003801212100080x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social sustainability of regional transportation: An assessment framework with application to EU road transport

Author

Listed:
  • Stefaniec, Agnieszka
  • Hosseini, Keyvan
  • Assani, Saeed
  • Hosseini, Seyed Maziar
  • Li, Yongjun

Abstract

The assessment of transportation social sustainability appeals to many scholars as an essential issue but imposes a risk of selecting inadequate factors and methods to measure social phenomena. In this study, based on an extensive review, we identify the measurable key social indicators (instead of the economic or environmental factors commonly used) and propose a comprehensive evaluation framework for relative performance analysis of social sustainability in the regional context. This work is the first attempt to assess regional social sustainability of transport explicitly utilizing a multi-output performance measure. We use Shannon entropy to combine the results of selected data envelopment analysis (DEA) models into a unified social sustainability performance score. The method is applied to regional road transport in the European Union (EU) member states for the period 2004–2017. The empirical section explores individual profiles of EU countries, compares the states grouped into two clusters of old (EU-15) and new (EU-13) EU members, and examines their social sustainability performance over time. The analysis suggests that considering only social factors in the measurement eliminates the bias resulting from the inclusion of economic factors. As a result, our method prevents inaccurate inflation of the scores of more economically advanced countries. The findings also draw attention to the car dependence problem associated with high motorization rates in affluent EU-15 states. The study confirms the capacity of the proposed DEA-based framework to serve as an adequate tool for measuring the social sustainability of transport, which can support policymakers by providing useful benchmarks employing social factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefaniec, Agnieszka & Hosseini, Keyvan & Assani, Saeed & Hosseini, Seyed Maziar & Li, Yongjun, 2021. "Social sustainability of regional transportation: An assessment framework with application to EU road transport," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:78:y:2021:i:c:s003801212100080x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2021.101088
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003801212100080X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.seps.2021.101088?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mahmoudi, Reza & Emrouznejad, Ali & Shetab-Boushehri, Seyyed-Nader & Hejazi, Seyed Reza, 2020. "The origins, development and future directions of data envelopment analysis approach in transportation systems," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    2. Zhou, Haibo & Yang, Yi & Chen, Yao & Zhu, Joe, 2018. "Data envelopment analysis application in sustainability: The origins, development and future directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(1), pages 1-16.
    3. Emrouznejad, Ali & Yang, Guo-liang, 2018. "A survey and analysis of the first 40 years of scholarly literature in DEA: 1978–2016," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 4-8.
    4. Nasierowski, W. & Arcelus, F. J., 2003. "On the efficiency of national innovation systems," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 215-234, September.
    5. Peter Dobers & Rolf Wolff, 1999. "Eco‐efficiency and dematerialization: Scenarios for new industrial logics in recycling industries, automobile and household appliances," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(1), pages 31-45, January.
    6. Dariush Khezrimotlagh & Yao Chen, 2018. "Data Envelopment Analysis," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Decision Making and Performance Evaluation Using Data Envelopment Analysis, chapter 0, pages 217-234, Springer.
    7. Maria Cracolici & Miranda Cuffaro & Peter Nijkamp, 2010. "The Measurement of Economic, Social and Environmental Performance of Countries: A Novel Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 95(2), pages 339-356, January.
    8. Chien-Ming Chen & Magali A. Delmas, 2012. "Measuring Eco-Inefficiency: A New Frontier Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(5), pages 1064-1079, October.
    9. Viktorija Skvarciany & Daiva Jurevičienė & Gintarė Volskytė, 2020. "Assessment of Sustainable Socioeconomic Development in European Union Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-19, March.
    10. Rolf Färe & Shawna Grosskopf & Carl A Pasurka, Jr., 2001. "Accounting for Air Pollution Emissions in Measures of State Manufacturing Productivity Growth," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 381-409, August.
    11. Shi, Jing & Zhou, Nian, 2012. "A quantitative transportation project investment evaluation approach with both equity and efficiency aspects," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 93-100.
    12. Fare, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna, 2004. "Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation: Comment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(1), pages 242-245, August.
    13. Mahmoudi, Reza & Shetab-Boushehri, Seyyed-Nader & Hejazi, Seyed Reza & Emrouznejad, Ali & Rajabi, Parisa, 2019. "A hybrid egalitarian bargaining game-DEA and sustainable network design approach for evaluating, selecting and scheduling urban road construction projects," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 161-183.
    14. Yongjun Li & Xiao Shi & Ali Emrouznejad & Liang Liang, 2020. "Ranking intervals for two-stage production systems," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(2), pages 209-224, February.
    15. Orru, Kati & Poom, Age & Nordlund, Annika, 2019. "Socio-structural and psychological factors behind car use: Comparing Northern and Eastern Europe," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 313-325.
    16. Bian, Yiwen & Yang, Feng, 2010. "Resource and environment efficiency analysis of provinces in China: A DEA approach based on Shannon's entropy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1909-1917, April.
    17. Nolan, J. F. & Ritchie, P. C. & Rowcroft, J. E., 2002. "Identifying and measuring public policy goals: ISTEA and the US bus transit industry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 291-304, July.
    18. Murty, Sushama & Robert Russell, R. & Levkoff, Steven B., 2012. "On modeling pollution-generating technologies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 117-135.
    19. Ralph Buehler & John Pucher & Regine Gerike & Thomas Götschi, 2017. "Reducing car dependence in the heart of Europe: lessons from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 4-28, January.
    20. Hirofumi Fukuyama & Yuichiro Yoshida & Shunsuke Managi, 2011. "Modal choice between air and rail: a social efficiency benchmarking analysis that considers CO 2 emissions," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 13(2), pages 89-102, June.
    21. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan, 2017. "Social sustainability measured by intermediate approach for DEA environmental assessment: Chinese regional planning for economic development and pollution prevention," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 154-166.
    22. Sheth, Chintan & Triantis, Konstantinos & Teodorovic, Dusan, 2007. "Performance evaluation of bus routes: A provider and passenger perspective," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 453-478, July.
    23. Oum, Tae Hoon & Pathomsiri, Somchai & Yoshida, Yuichiro, 2013. "Limitations of DEA-based approach and alternative methods in the measurement and comparison of social efficiency across firms in different transport modes: An empirical study in Japan," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 16-26.
    24. Jones, Peter & Lucas, Karen, 2012. "The social consequences of transport decision-making: clarifying concepts, synthesising knowledge and assessing implications," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 4-16.
    25. Leleu, Hervé, 2013. "Shadow pricing of undesirable outputs in nonparametric analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 474-480.
    26. Éléonore Lèbre & Martin Stringer & Kamila Svobodova & John R. Owen & Deanna Kemp & Claire Côte & Andrea Arratia-Solar & Rick K. Valenta, 2020. "The social and environmental complexities of extracting energy transition metals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-8, December.
    27. Laurens Cherchye & Willem Moesen & Nicky Rogge & Tom Puyenbroeck, 2007. "An Introduction to ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ Composite Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 82(1), pages 111-145, May.
    28. Christopher Kennedy, 2002. "A comparison of the sustainability of public and private transportation systems: Study of the Greater Toronto Area," Transportation, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 459-493, November.
    29. Gudmundsson, Henrik & Hojer, Mattias, 1996. "Sustainable development principles and their implications for transport," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 269-282, December.
    30. Zhang, Chunqin & Juan, Zhicai & Luo, Qingyu & Xiao, Guangnian, 2016. "Performance evaluation of public transit systems using a combined evaluation method," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 156-167.
    31. Dyson, R. G. & Allen, R. & Camanho, A. S. & Podinovski, V. V. & Sarrico, C. S. & Shale, E. A., 2001. "Pitfalls and protocols in DEA," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 245-259, July.
    32. Shiau, Tzay-An, 2013. "Evaluating sustainable transport strategies for the counties of Taiwan based on their degree of urbanization," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 101-108.
    33. Smith, T.W. & Axon, C.J. & Darton, R.C., 2013. "A methodology for measuring the sustainability of car transport systems," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 308-317.
    34. Eugenia Nissi & Annalina Sarra, 2018. "A Measure of Well-Being Across the Italian Urban Areas: An Integrated DEA-Entropy Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 1183-1209, April.
    35. Hwang, Shiuh-Nan & Chen, Chialin & Chen, Yao & Lee, Hsuan-Shih & Shen, Pei-Di, 2013. "Sustainable design performance evaluation with applications in the automobile industry: Focusing on inefficiency by undesirable factors," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 553-558.
    36. Jeon, Christy Mihyeon & Amekudzi, Adjo A. & Guensler, Randall L., 2013. "Sustainability assessment at the transportation planning level: Performance measures and indexes," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 10-21.
    37. Aizhen Zhang & Aijun Li & Yaping Gao, 2018. "Social Sustainability Assessment across Provinces in China: An Analysis of Combining Intermediate Approach with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Window Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-24, March.
    38. Hosseini, Keyvan & Stefaniec, Agnieszka, 2019. "Efficiency assessment of Iran's petroleum refining industry in the presence of unprofitable output: A dynamic two-stage slacks-based measure," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kumari, Alka & Singh, Manvendra Pratap, 2023. "A journey of social sustainability in organization during MDG & SDG period: A bibliometric analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Gandhi, Nevil & Kant, Ravi & Thakkar, Jitesh, 2022. "Sustainable performance assessment of rail freight transportation using triple bottom line approach: An application to Indian Railways," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 254-273.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abbas Mardani & Dalia Streimikiene & Tomas Balezentis & Muhamad Zameri Mat Saman & Khalil Md Nor & Seyed Meysam Khoshnava, 2018. "Data Envelopment Analysis in Energy and Environmental Economics: An Overview of the State-of-the-Art and Recent Development Trends," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-21, August.
    2. Zhou, Haibo & Yang, Yi & Chen, Yao & Zhu, Joe, 2018. "Data envelopment analysis application in sustainability: The origins, development and future directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(1), pages 1-16.
    3. Wang, Derek D. & Ren, Yaoyao, 2024. "Accuracy of Deterministic Nonparametric Frontier Models with Undesirable Outputs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 315(2), pages 596-612.
    4. Margaréta Halická & Mária Trnovská, 2018. "Negative features of hyperbolic and directional distance models for technologies with undesirable outputs," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 26(4), pages 887-907, December.
    5. Quintano, Claudio & Mazzocchi, Paolo & Rocca, Antonella, 2021. "Evaluation of the eco-efficiency of territorial districts with seaport economic activities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    6. Qingyou Yan & Xu Wang & Tomas Baležentis & Dalia Streimikiene, 2018. "Energy–economy–environmental (3E) performance of Chinese regions based on the data envelopment analysis model with mixed assumptions on disposability," Energy & Environment, , vol. 29(5), pages 664-684, August.
    7. Ke Wang & Yujiao Xian & Chia-Yen Lee & Yi-Ming Wei & Zhimin Huang, 2019. "On selecting directions for directional distance functions in a non-parametric framework: a review," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 278(1), pages 43-76, July.
    8. Wang, Ke & Wei, Yi-Ming & Huang, Zhimin, 2018. "Environmental efficiency and abatement efficiency measurements of China's thermal power industry: A data envelopment analysis based materials balance approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 269(1), pages 35-50.
    9. Beltrán-Esteve, Mercedes & Picazo-Tadeo, Andrés J., 2017. "Assessing environmental performance in the European Union: Eco-innovation versus catching-up," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 240-252.
    10. Shih-Heng Yu, 2019. "Benchmarking and Performance Evaluation Towards the Sustainable Development of Regions in Taiwan: A Minimum Distance-Based Measure with Undesirable Outputs in Additive DEA," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 1323-1348, August.
    11. Kai He & Nan Zhu & Wu Jiang & Chuanjin Zhu, 2022. "Efficiency Evaluation of Chinese Provincial Industrial System Based on Network DEA Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-24, April.
    12. Ke Wang & Yi-Ming Wei & Zhimin Huang, 2017. "Environmental efficiency and abatement efficiency measurements of China¡¯s thermal power industry: A data envelopment analysis based materials balance approach," CEEP-BIT Working Papers 108, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEP), Beijing Institute of Technology.
    13. Färe, Rolf & Grosskopf, Shawna & Pasurka, Carl, 2016. "Technical change and pollution abatement costs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 715-724.
    14. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Yuan, Yan & Goto, Mika, 2017. "A literature study for DEA applied to energy and environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 104-124.
    15. Tsaples, G. & Papathanasiou, J., 2021. "Data envelopment analysis and the concept of sustainability: A review and analysis of the literature," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    16. Sinuany-Stern, Zilla, 2023. "Foundations of operations research: From linear programming to data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(3), pages 1069-1080.
    17. Khezrimotlagh, Dariush & Kaffash, Sepideh & Zhu, Joe, 2022. "U.S. airline mergers’ performance and productivity change," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    18. Meike Weltin & Silke Hüttel, 2023. "Sustainable Intensification Farming as an Enabler for Farm Eco-Efficiency?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(1), pages 315-342, January.
    19. Jeanneaux, Philippe & Latruffe, Laure, 2016. "Modelling pollution-generating technologies in performance benchmarking: Recent developments, limits and future prospects in the nonparametric frameworkAuthor-Name: Dakpo, K. Hervé," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(2), pages 347-359.
    20. Xiaodong Chen & Anda Guo & Jiahao Zhu & Fang Wang & Yanqiu He, 2022. "Accessing performance of transport sector considering risks of climate change and traffic accidents: joint bounded-adjusted measure and Luenberger decomposition," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 111(1), pages 115-138, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:78:y:2021:i:c:s003801212100080x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/seps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.