Performance evaluation of China's railway passenger transportation sector. (December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bai, Xuejie; Jin, Zeng; Chiu, Yung-Ho
• Is Part Of: Research in transportation economics. Volume 90(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-12
• Subjects: Railway passenger transportation sector -- Dynamic network SBM Model -- Transporting efficiency -- Income-translated efficiency; D24 -- O57 -- Q53; Transportation -- Periodicals; 388.05
• DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2020.100859
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0739-8859

Abstract

Abstract: This research paper builds a dynamic network SBM (DNSBM) model to deconstruct China's railway passenger transportation sector into transporting division and income-translated division. The two division are linked to each other by passenger volume and transportation income. The results show that the overall average efficiency value of China's railway passenger transportation sector is 0.629, with transporting efficiency of 0.717 and income-translated efficiency of 0.625. Although the passenger volume and transportation income need to be increased, the performance of transportation income is worse due to price regulation. More importantly, the paper finds that the increase in total factor productivity (TFP) of this transportation sector is almost attributed to the enhanced TFP from frontier progress in the railway transporting process, whereas the income-translated process and the technical efficiency of transporting process are associated with productivity loss. Hence, apart from revision of inputs misallocation, this paper proposes that the development policies in China's railway passenger transportation sector should take into account the role played by the market and deregulate price.