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The impact of including service quality into efficiency analysis: The case of franchising regional rail passenger serves in Germany

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  • Link, Heike

Abstract

Based on a 12 years panel data set for franchised regional rail services, this paper studies the impact of including service quality into an analysis of efficiency differences between the German public transport authorities (PTAs) in using their available public funds. The analysis employs a two-stage efficiency analysis with a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in the first stage and a Tobit panel model in the second stage. Both a base model with conventional output variables and a model which includes additional indicators of service quality provide robust results regarding the factors which explain efficiency differences between PTAs. PTAs with a higher share of tendering, a higher share of gross contracts and longer and smaller contracts were more efficient than others, with the effect being even stronger when including quality of service indicators. A further finding is the change of PTA’s ranking when including quality of service. Therefore, neglecting quality of service and restricting efficiency analysis to conventional output measures might result in misleading policies.

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  • Link, Heike, 2019. "The impact of including service quality into efficiency analysis: The case of franchising regional rail passenger serves in Germany," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 284-300.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:119:y:2019:i:c:p:284-300
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2018.11.019
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    Cited by:

    1. Li, Zheng & Hensher, David A. & Rose, John M., 2010. "Willingness to pay for travel time reliability in passenger transport: A review and some new empirical evidence," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 384-403, May.
    2. Smith, Andrew S.J. & Ojeda Cabral, Manuel, 2022. "Is higher quality always costly? Marginal costs of quality: Theory and application to railway punctuality," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 258-273.
    3. Holvad, Torben, 2020. "Efficiency analyses for the railway sector: An overview of key issues," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Thampan, Aromal & Sinha, Kapil & Gurjar, B.R. & Rajasekar, E., 2020. "Functional efficiency in airport terminals: A review on Overall and Stratified Service Quality," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. Christian Desmaris & Guillaume Monchambert, 2021. "Regional Passenger Rail Efficiency: Measurement and Explanation in the case of France," Post-Print halshs-03118747, HAL.
    6. Jakub Chini & Martin Kvizda & Ondřej Špetík, 2023. "What is the real power of incumbents? Case study on the Czech Republic," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 24(1), pages 24-39, March.
    7. Christian Desmaris & Guillaume Monchambert, 2021. "Regional Passenger Rail Efficiency: Measurement and Explanation in the case of France," Working Papers halshs-03118747, HAL.
    8. Freiria, Susana & Sousa, Nuno & Calvo-Poyo, Francisco, 2022. "Spatial analysis of the impact of transport accessibility on regional performance: A study for Europe," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rail franchising; Quality of service; Efficiency analysis; Data envelopment analysis; Tobit model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C24 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • L92 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Railroads and Other Surface Transportation

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