Performance evaluation of bus routes: A provider and passenger perspective

In this paper, the provision of bus services along different routes that comprise a public transit network is assessed taking into consideration, the service providers, the users and the societal perspectives. This model is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) [Charnes, A., Cooper W.W., Rhodes, E., 1978. Measuring the efficiency of decision-making units. European Journal of Operational Research 2, 429–444] and derives from the Network Model in DEA [Färe, R., Grosskopf, S., 2000. Network DEA. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 34, 35–49] and Goal Programming in DEA [Athanassopoulos, A., 1995. Goal programming and data envelopment analysis (GoDEA) for target-based multi-level planning: allocating central grants to the Greek local authorities. European Journal of Operational Research 87, 535–550]. This proposed approach enables the decision maker not only to optimally allocate resources across the transit network but to achieve targets for societal variables that represent the environment in which the bus services are provided.