Measuring transfer efficiency of urban public transportation terminals by data envelopment analysis

The importance of a transportation terminal's transfer efficiency to passengers is well known. However, it is still a problem of how to combine the various indicators into a single indicator that can be used to quickly compare transportation terminals' transfer efficiency and identify those terminals in need of intervention. This paper presents a study that is reflective of such an effort. Using the transfer data obtained from 10 transportation terminals in Beijing, the individual performance measures were combined into a single comprehensive measure through the data envelopment analysis (DEA). Efficiency is allowed to be measured by DEA when decision making units have multiple inputs and multiple outputs. The input variables are the transfer area, operating expense, (the number of) staff in the terminal and the capacity of buses. The output variables are measured by the transfer safety and average transfer time of all the transfer passengers. This paper gained the efficiency order of the 10 transportation terminals in Beijing, and provides the potential improvements of each efficiency indicators. The findings and limitations of DEA are also discussed.