Evaluating and Analyzing the Operation Efficiency of Urban Rail Transit Systems in China Using an Integrated Approach of DEA Model, Malmquist Productivity Index, and Tobit Regression Model

Abstract

With social progress and economic development, urban rail transit systems have been developed to satisfy the growing travel demands in China. Undoubtedly, it is necessary to evaluate the operation efficiency of urban rail transit systems and analyze their influence factors, which are highly significant for promoting management performance. In the present paper, an integrated approach is proposed, which consists of a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, a Malmquist productivity index, and a Tobit regression model. For evaluating the operation efficiency of urban rail transit systems in China, the DEA model and the Malmquist productivity index provide an evaluation metric, and the Tobit regression model is used to carry out influential factor analysis. The test data are collected from six typical cities at different stages of rail transit system development from 2013 to 2017, in order to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The experimental results demonstrate the operation efficiency of different rail transit systems and the effects of several influencing factors. The conclusions from this paper can guide policymaking and provide references for enterprises to improve the operation efficiency of rail transit in China.