Efficiency Evaluation of Bus Transport Operations Given Exogenous Environmental Factors

Qiong Li,Yang Chen,Peng rui Bai,Jinjun Tang,Xiao Wei

doi:10.1155/2020/8899782

Abstract

As a mode of green transport that can effectively alleviate urban traffic congestion and improve air quality, bus transport is highly subsidized by governments at all levels in China. Thus, measuring efficiency in the bus transport sector is particularly important. However, few reports in the literature have taken exogenous environmental factors into consideration to evaluate public transport operation efficiency. This may lead to inaccurate evaluation results. This study employs the three-stage DEA model, which can eliminate the impacts of exogenous environmental factors on public bus transport operation to gain real efficiency results. Meanwhile, to further explore how exogenous environmental factors affect bus transport operations, a tobit model is used to analyse the results. The main results of this paper reveal the following: first, exogenous environmental factors have a significant impact on the operational efficiency of bus transport. It is reasonable and necessary to select the three-stage method to eliminate environmental factors for real bus operation efficiency. Second, the fluctuations of the bus transport efficiency of 30 cities decreased during 2010–2016. The western region has the highest operation efficiency, followed by the eastern and the middle regions. Third, the economic, taxi transport, and urban rail transport have a marked impact on the operational efficiency of bus transport. This paper confirms the important influence of exogenous environmental factors on the efficiency of public transport operations. In addition, this article could help improve the efficiency of urban public transport operations and promote the attractiveness of urban public transport and the amount of green travel.

Highlights

Bus transport has a major advantage over other modes of urban transit in low per capita occupancy of road resources, energy conservation, and environmental protection [1]
Serious traffic congestion and environmental pollution are threatening the sustainable development of cites all over the world [2]. e development of public bus transport is considered an effective measure to address the above urban problems [3]. us, efforts to expand and improve bus transport services are necessary for every city
According to the identification principle of exogenous factors employed in other industries [35, 39, 41] and fully combining them with the bus transport operational environment, this paper proposes five variables that may have an impact on operational efficiency

Summary

Introduction

Bus transport has a major advantage over other modes of urban transit in low per capita occupancy of road resources, energy conservation, and environmental protection [1]. E development of public bus transport is considered an effective measure to address the above urban problems [3]. Us, efforts to expand and improve bus transport services are necessary for every city. In China, the bus transport priority policy was put forward in 2004. Given that China is a developing country, it is vital for the country to use financial resources efficiently and effectively [4]. It is not clear whether the function of national finance to improve bus service performance is maximized. It is certain that higher efficiency in a bus transport system means more reasonable utilization of financial funds and better bus services [2]. us, a reliable efficiency evaluation of bus transport is extremely important

Methods

Results

Conclusion