Measuring transit performance using data envelopment analysis

Governmental agencies need to be able to assess the performance of transit agencies and to compare them with peer agencies. This assessment must measure not only how efficient the agency is in producing transit service, but also how effective it is in having that service consumed. This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to develop a single measure for the efficiency and a single measure for the effectiveness of a transit agency relative to other agencies within the same peer group. By using a single measure for each of these criteria, this paper provides a more robust indicator of transit performance than the widely used multiple ratio analysis performed in the Irvine Performance Evaluation Method (IPEM). The DEA model is applied to two transit agency peer groups-one serving large metropolitan areas and the other serving relatively small cities and large towns.