Efficiencies of the urban railway lines incorporating financial performance and in-vehicle congestion in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area

This study reviews the operations in 18 lines of seven major urban railway operators in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and empirically evaluates their efficiencies while incorporating financial performance and in-vehicle congestion. The data were collected from statistical sources publicly available in Japan, and they contain in-vehicle congestion rates, line lengths, number of stations, vehicle kilometers, number of passengers, passenger kilometers, operating revenues by railway line, and operating expenses by operator in 2017. The line-level efficiencies of the operational efficiency, cost efficiency, and revenue efficiency were analyzed using data envelopment analyses, and Tobit regression was applied to examine how in-vehicle congestion rates are associated with these efficiencies. The efficiency analysis results showed that incorporating the in-vehicle congestion rate into operational efficiency enables to reflect the quality-of-service of the railway operation into the efficiency scores. Moreover, higher in-vehicle congestion rate leads to a lower cost efficiency but a higher revenue efficiency. The possible measures to improve efficiencies were discussed as per the categories of lines.