IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v120y2019icp83-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Efficiency in rail transport: Evaluation of the main drivers through meta-analysis with resampling

Author

Listed:
  • Marchetti, Dalmo
  • Wanke, Peter F.

Abstract

Meta-analysis is a statistical method used to make a systematic review of the literature to integrate the results of a series of studies. It is increasingly adopted in social sciences but according to our best knowledge used for the first time to aggregate and contrast findings on rail transport efficiency. The experiment adopted a permutation test to evaluate the influence of variables discussed in the literature in the mean efficiency scores. The results suggest that railways located in Japan and in the US have characteristics that push them toward increasing efficiency. The passenger rail systems reached significantly higher estimates than conventional cargo systems. Estimates from parametric and nonparametric models showed significant difference, while from nonparametric models including Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and from Network DEA did not. The number of variables and the ratio between the number of decision making units and the number of variables employed significantly influenced the scores. Unexpectedly, different data structures did not. Validation methods are presented. Public policies based on the empirical results are commented.

Suggested Citation

  • Marchetti, Dalmo & Wanke, Peter F., 2019. "Efficiency in rail transport: Evaluation of the main drivers through meta-analysis with resampling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 83-100.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:120:y:2019:i:c:p:83-100
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2018.12.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856417313162
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2018.12.005?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. Antonio Couto & Daniel Graham, 2008. "The contributions of technical and allocative efficiency to the economic performance of European railways," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 7(2), pages 125-153, August.
    2. Per Andersen & Niels Christian Petersen, 1993. "A Procedure for Ranking Efficient Units in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(10), pages 1261-1264, October.
    3. Koetter, Michael & Karmann, Alexander & Fiorentino, Elisabetta, 2006. "The cost efficiency of German banks: a comparison of SFA and DEA," Discussion Paper Series 2: Banking and Financial Studies 2006,10, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Yu, Ming-Miin, 2008. "Assessing the technical efficiency, service effectiveness, and technical effectiveness of the world's railways through NDEA analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1283-1294, December.
    5. Dimitropoulos, Alexandros & Rietveld, Piet & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2013. "Consumer valuation of changes in driving range: A meta-analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 27-45.
    6. Yu, Ming-Miin & Lin, Erwin T.J., 2008. "Efficiency and effectiveness in railway performance using a multi-activity network DEA model," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1005-1017, December.
    7. Nicholas Crafts & Timothy Leunig & Abay Mulatu, 2008. "Were British railway companies well managed in the early twentieth century?1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 61(4), pages 842-866, November.
    8. Aziz Kutlar & Ali Kabasakal & Murat Sarikaya, 2013. "Determination of the efficiency of the world railway companies by method of DEA and comparison of their efficiency by Tobit analysis," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 3575-3602, October.
    9. Olli‐Pekka Hilmola, 2007. "European railway freight transportation and adaptation to demand decline," International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 205-225, March.
    10. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    11. Peter Wanke & Barros, 2015. "Slacks determinants in Brazilian railways: a distance friction minimization approach with fixed factors," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(47), pages 5103-5120, October.
    12. Martijn Brons & Peter Nijkamp & Eric Pels & Piet Rietveld, 2005. "Efficiency of urban public transit: A meta analysis," Transportation, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 1-21, January.
    13. Castillo-Manzano, José I. & Castro-Nuño, Mercedes, 2012. "Driving licenses based on points systems: Efficient road safety strategy or latest fashion in global transport policy? A worldwide meta-analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 191-201.
    14. Marchetti, Dalmo & Wanke, Peter, 2017. "Brazil's rail freight transport: Efficiency analysis using two-stage DEA and cluster-driven public policies," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 26-42.
    15. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Golany, B. & Seiford, L. & Stutz, J., 1985. "Foundations of data envelopment analysis for Pareto-Koopmans efficient empirical production functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 91-107.
    16. Mohammad, Sara I. & Graham, Daniel J. & Melo, Patricia C. & Anderson, Richard J., 2013. "A meta-analysis of the impact of rail projects on land and property values," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 158-170.
    17. Graham, Daniel J., 2008. "Productivity and efficiency in urban railways: Parametric and non-parametric estimates," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 84-99, January.
    18. Subal Kumbhakar & Luis Orea & Ana Rodríguez-Álvarez & Efthymios Tsionas, 2007. "Do we estimate an input or an output distance function? An application of the mixture approach to European railways," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 87-100, April.
    19. Adler, Nicole & Martini, Gianmaria & Volta, Nicola, 2013. "Measuring the environmental efficiency of the global aviation fleet," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 82-100.
    20. Jitsuzumi, Toshiya & Nakamura, Akihiro, 2010. "Causes of inefficiency in Japanese railways: Application of DEA for managers and policymakers," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 161-173, September.
    21. William W. Cooper & Lawrence M. Seiford & Kaoru Tone, 2006. "Introduction to Data Envelopment Analysis and Its Uses," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-0-387-29122-2, January.
    22. Howard, II., James P., 2016. "Meta-Analysis with R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 70(b01).
    23. Ali Kabasakal & Aziz Kutlar & Murat Sarikaya, 2015. "Efficiency determinations of the worldwide railway companies via DEA and contributions of the outputs to the efficiency and TFP by panel regression," 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. 23(1), pages 69-88, March.
    24. Dervaux, Benoît & Kerstens, Kristiaan & Vanden Eeckaut, Philippe, 1998. "Radial and nonradial static efficiency decompositions: a focus on congestion measurement," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 299-312, June.
    25. Viechtbauer, Wolfgang, 2010. "Conducting Meta-Analyses in R with the metafor Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 36(i03).
    26. Suzuki, Soushi & Nijkamp, Peter & Rietveld, Piet & Pels, Eric, 2010. "A distance friction minimization approach in data envelopment analysis: A comparative study on airport efficiency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(2), pages 1104-1115, December.
    27. Dean A. Follmann & Michael A. Proschan, 1999. "Valid Inference in Random Effects Meta-Analysis," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 55(3), pages 732-737, September.
    28. Holmgren, Johan, 2007. "Meta-analysis of public transport demand," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(10), pages 1021-1035, December.
    29. Feli X. Shi & Siew Hoon Lim & Junwook Chi, 2011. "Railroad productivity analysis: case of the American Class I railroads," International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 60(4), pages 372-386, April.
    30. Fare, Rolf & Knox Lovell, C. A., 1978. "Measuring the technical efficiency of production," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 150-162, October.
    31. R. G. Chambers & Y. Chung & R. Färe, 1998. "Profit, Directional Distance Functions, and Nerlovian Efficiency," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 98(2), pages 351-364, August.
    32. Crafts, Nicholas & Mills, Terence C. & Mulatu, Abay, 2007. "Total factor productivity growth on Britain's railways, 1852-1912: A reappraisal of the evidence," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 608-634, October.
    33. 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.
    34. Wardman, Mark & Chintakayala, V. Phani K. & de Jong, Gerard, 2016. "Values of travel time in Europe: Review and meta-analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 93-111.
    35. Mallikarjun, Sreekanth & Lewis, Herbert F. & Sexton, Thomas R., 2014. "Operational performance of U.S. public rail transit and implications for public policy," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 74-88.
    36. Cavill, Nick & Kahlmeier, Sonja & Rutter, Harry & Racioppi, Francesca & Oja, Pekka, 2008. "Economic analyses of transport infrastructure and policies including health effects related to cycling and walking: A systematic review," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 291-304, September.
    37. Nocera, Silvio & Tonin, Stefania & Cavallaro, Federico, 2015. "The economic impact of greenhouse gas abatement through a meta-analysis: Valuation, consequences and implications in terms of transport policy," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 31-43.
    38. Thiam, Abdourahmane & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E. & Rivas, Teodoro E., 2001. "Technical efficiency in developing country agriculture: a meta-analysis," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 25(2-3), pages 235-243, September.
    39. Peter Bogetoft & Lars Otto, 2011. "Benchmarking with DEA, SFA, and R," International Series in Operations Research and Management Science, Springer, number 978-1-4419-7961-2, December.
    40. Viton, Philip A., 1997. "Technical efficiency in multi-mode bus transit: A production frontier analysis," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 23-39, February.
    41. Odeck, James & Bråthen, Svein, 2012. "A meta-analysis of DEA and SFA studies of the technical efficiency of seaports: A comparison of fixed and random-effects regression models," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1574-1585.
    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. Francisco Gildemir Ferreira da Silva & Renata Lúcia Magalhães de Oliveira & Marin Marinov, 2020. "An Analysis of the Effects on Rail Operational Efficiency Due to a Merger between Brazilian Rail Companies: The Case of RUMO-ALL," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-23, June.
    2. Daraio, Cinzia & Kerstens, Kristiaan & Nepomuceno, Thyago & Sickles, Robin C., 2019. "Empirical Surveys of Frontier Applications: A Meta-Review," Working Papers 19-005, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    3. Ricardo F. Díaz & Blanca Sanchez-Robles, 2020. "Non-Parametric Analysis of Efficiency: An Application to the Pharmaceutical Industry," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-27, September.
    4. Jorge Antunes & Goodness C. Aye & Rangan Gupta & Peter Wanke & Yong Tan, 2020. "Endogenous Long-Term Productivity Performance in Advanced Countries: A Novel Two-Dimensional Fuzzy-Monte Carlo Approach," Working Papers 2020111, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    5. Weidong Li & Olli-Pekka Hilmola, 2019. "Belt and Road Initiative and Railway Sector Efficiency—Application of Networked Benchmarking Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-21, April.
    6. Tomikawa, Tadaaki & Goto, Mika, 2022. "Efficiency assessment of Japanese National Railways before and after privatization and divestiture using data envelopment analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 44-55.
    7. Thiago Victorino & Carlos Rosano Peña, 2023. "The Development of Efficiency Analysis in Transportation Systems: A Bibliometric and Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-32, June.

    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. Marchetti, Dalmo & Wanke, Peter, 2017. "Brazil's rail freight transport: Efficiency analysis using two-stage DEA and cluster-driven public policies," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 26-42.
    2. Bhatia, Vinod & Sharma, Seema, 2021. "Expense based performance analysis and resource rationalization: Case of Indian Railways," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Cavaignac, Laurent & Petiot, Romain, 2017. "A quarter century of Data Envelopment Analysis applied to the transport sector: A bibliometric analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 84-96.
    4. Xiong, Beibei & Chen, Haoxun & An, Qingxian & Wu, Jie, 2019. "A multi-objective distance friction minimization model for performance assessment through data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(1), pages 132-142.
    5. Thiago Victorino & Carlos Rosano Peña, 2023. "The Development of Efficiency Analysis in Transportation Systems: A Bibliometric and Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-32, June.
    6. Mallikarjun, Sreekanth & Lewis, Herbert F. & Sexton, Thomas R., 2014. "Operational performance of U.S. public rail transit and implications for public policy," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 74-88.
    7. Le, Yiping & Oka, Minami & Kato, Hironori, 2022. "Efficiencies of the urban railway lines incorporating financial performance and in-vehicle congestion in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 343-354.
    8. Forsund, Finn R. & Sarafoglou, Nikias, 2005. "The tale of two research communities: The diffusion of research on productive efficiency," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 17-40, October.
    9. Suzuki, Soushi & Nijkamp, Peter, 2016. "An evaluation of energy-environment-economic efficiency for EU, APEC and ASEAN countries: Design of a Target-Oriented DFM model with fixed factors in Data Envelopment Analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 100-112.
    10. Fukuyama, Hirofumi & Weber, William L., 2010. "A slacks-based inefficiency measure for a two-stage system with bad outputs," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 398-409, October.
    11. 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).
    12. Barra, Cristian & Zotti, Roberto, 2014. "Handling negative data using Data Envelopment Analysis: a directional distance approach applied to higher education," MPRA Paper 55570, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Merkel, Axel & Holmgren, Johan, 2017. "Dredging the depths of knowledge: Efficiency analysis in the maritime port sector," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 63-74.
    14. Sun, Qinghe & Chen, Li & Meng, Qiang, 2022. "Evaluating port efficiency dynamics: A risk-based approach," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 333-347.
    15. Huang, Wencheng & Shuai, Bin & Sun, Yan & Wang, Yang & Antwi, Eric, 2018. "Using entropy-TOPSIS method to evaluate urban rail transit system operation performance: The China case," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 292-303.
    16. Sarmento, Joaquim Miranda & Renneboog, Luc & Verga-Matos, Pedro, 2017. "Measuring highway efficiency : A DEA approach and the Malquist index," Other publications TiSEM 23264815-321e-45a3-83ee-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Barbero, Javier & Zofío, José L., 2023. "The measurement of profit, profitability, cost and revenue efficiency through data envelopment analysis: A comparison of models using BenchmarkingEconomicEfficiency.jl," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    18. Fukuyama, Hirofumi & Weber, William L., 2009. "A directional slacks-based measure of technical inefficiency," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 274-287, December.
    19. Aziz Kutlar & Ali Kabasakal & Murat Sarikaya, 2013. "Determination of the efficiency of the world railway companies by method of DEA and comparison of their efficiency by Tobit analysis," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 3575-3602, October.
    20. Raul Moragues & Juan Aparicio & Miriam Esteve, 2023. "Measuring technical efficiency for multi-input multi-output production processes through OneClass Support Vector Machines: a finite-sample study," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1-33, September.

    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:transa:v:120:y:2019:i:c:p:83-100. 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/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    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.