Efficiency Analysis of Tramways in the Metropolitan Areas in South Korea: Focusing on the Daejeon Metropolitan Area

Abstract

This study aims to present the meaningful implications of introducing a tramway as a new mode of transportation in the Daejeon Metropolitan Area, a major metropolitan area in South Korea. An efficiency comparison by data envelopment analysis (DEA) was carried out, using variables selected from the 2021 Public Transportation Investigation by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority (KTSA) (2021), and the ‘Guidelines for selecting new transportation means’ announced by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in 2021. As a result, the efficiency of public transportation in major metropolitan areas outside of the capital region was higher than in the capital metropolitan area. In particular, the Daejeon Metropolitan Area ranked high in efficiency compared to other major metropolitan areas with similar conditions. In the V-super efficiency results of the efficiency model based on the input of operational costs for each new mode of transportation, considering variable returns to scale (VRS), the bus rapid transit (BRT) ranked first, the tramway second, and the bimodal tram third. Regarding construction cost input, the tramway ranked first, the bimodal tram second, and BRT third.