Assessing the sustainability of transport supply chains by double frontier network data envelopment analysis

Abstract

The transport industry is one of the main contributors to environmental pollution. Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is an essential subject in the transportation industry. Today, one of the important goals of organizations is to evaluate the sustainability of supply chain (SC) because assessing the efficiency of SCs helps organizations to enhance their awareness of performance and develop managerial strategies. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a common technique to assess the sustainability. The objective of this paper is to propose a Malmquist productivity index (MPI) based on network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) model in the presence of integer data, undesirable outputs, and non-discretionary inputs. The NDEA models deal with the internal structure of decision making units (DMUs). The MPI reflects the productivity change over time. The proposed model can fully rank DMUs. To prove the applicability of the proposed model, the sustainability of intercity passenger transportation is evaluated.