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The effect of policy and background variables on total factor productivity for public transit

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  • Benjamin, Julian
  • Obeng, Kofi

Abstract

This paper investigates total factor productivity as a unified measure of transit performance. The approach uses the shift in the cost function of inputs and outputs as the measure of change in productivity. A three step regression procedure was used to estimate model parameters. The approach was applied to a sample of transit agencies. Predictor variables were tested for a two-year period representing different financial and background situations. Hypotheses were tested for static and dynamic measures of environment and policy with capacity and efficiency and for measures of capacity and efficiency with productivity. It was found that when vehicle-miles was the output measure, only vehicle efficiency was related to labor productivity. Further, it was found that when passenger-miles was the output variable, only population and fleet size were good predictors of total factor productivity. Productivity is, in general, stable and approximately constant for these agencies. The implication for transit agencies is to concentrate efforts to improve productivity on highly congested corridors and, overall, through the use of vehicle and manpower scheduling.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin, Julian & Obeng, Kofi, 1990. "The effect of policy and background variables on total factor productivity for public transit," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 1-14, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transb:v:24:y:1990:i:1:p:1-14
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    Cited by:

    1. Sampaio, Breno Ramos & Neto, Oswaldo Lima & Sampaio, Yony, 2008. "Efficiency analysis of public transport systems: Lessons for institutional planning," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 445-454, March.
    2. Karlaftis, Matthew G. & Tsamboulas, Dimitrios, 2012. "Efficiency measurement in public transport: Are findings specification sensitive?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 392-402.
    3. Obeng, K. & Sakano, R., 2008. "Public transit subsidies, output effect and total factor productivity," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 85-98, January.
    4. Karlaftis, Matthew G., 2004. "A DEA approach for evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of urban transit systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 152(2), pages 354-364, January.
    5. Merkert, Rico & Mulley, Corinne & Hakim, Md Mahbubul, 2017. "Determinants of bus rapid transit (BRT) system revenue and effectiveness – A global benchmarking exercise," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 75-88.
    6. Wei, Ran & Liu, Xiaoyue & Mu, Yongjian & Wang, Liming & Golub, Aaron & Farber, Steven, 2017. "Evaluating public transit services for operational efficiency and access equity," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 70-79.
    7. Tianbo Tang & Jianxin You & Hui Sun & Hao Zhang, 2019. "Transportation Efficiency Evaluation Considering the Environmental Impact for China’s Freight Sector: A Parallel Data Envelopment Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-24, September.
    8. Ganji, S.S. & Dehghani, Alireza & Ajirlu, Shahrouz Fathi, 2024. "Evaluation of intercity road passenger transportation using a novel double-frontier game-regret-cross-efficiency," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    9. Georgios Georgiadis & Ioannis Politis & Panagiotis Papaioannou, 2020. "How Does Operational Environment Influence Public Transport Effectiveness? Evidence from European Urban Bus Operators," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-19, June.
    10. Pal, Debdatta & Mitra, Subrata K., 2016. "An application of the directional distance function with the number of accidents as an undesirable output to measure the technical efficiency of state road transport in India," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-12.
    11. Md. Nazmul Huda Naim & Mohammed Sarfaraz Gani Adnan & Ashraf Dewan & Khatun E. Zannat, 2022. "Assessing the performance of public transport services in a developing country: A case study using data envelopment analysis," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 377-409, March.
    12. Karlaftis, Matthew G., 2003. "Investigating transit production and performance: a programming approach," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 225-240, March.
    13. Karlaftis, Matt G. & McCarthy, Patrick, 1998. "Operating subsidies and performance in public transit: an empirical study," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 359-375, September.

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