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The impact of reliability on the productivity of railroad companies

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  • Abate, Megersa
  • Lijesen, Mark
  • Pels, Eric
  • Roelevelt, Adriaan

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between reliability (proxied by punctuality) and productivity in passenger railroad services. Increasing reliability may lower productivity, as it requires inputs, that can’t be used to produce outputs. The relationship between reliability and productivity also runs through other factors, in which case a positive relationship may be expected. We apply data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist index approach to a panel of seven European railway systems to explore this relationship. Our empirical results suggest that increasing reliability does not harm the productivity of railway operations and aiming to improve both may be a feasible strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Abate, Megersa & Lijesen, Mark & Pels, Eric & Roelevelt, Adriaan, 2013. "The impact of reliability on the productivity of railroad companies," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 41-49.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transe:v:51:y:2013:i:c:p:41-49
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tre.2012.12.004
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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. Xu, Ren-Hong & Lai, Yung-Cheng & Huang, Kwei-Long, 2021. "Decision support models for annual catenary maintenance task identification and assignment," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
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    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Kwon, He-Boong, 2017. "Exploring the predictive potential of artificial neural networks in conjunction with DEA in railroad performance modeling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(PA), pages 159-170.

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