Efficiency evaluation of Iran's railway stations using data envelopment analysis

Railways are an efficient transport system that provides the possibility of transportation through a rail network. Railway stations are the significant part of the rail transport system and evaluating its performance is of particular importance since various activities such as passenger transport, and welfare and commercial services are provided in this part of the system. In this re- search, the efficiency of Iranian railway passenger stations in 19 zones as the case of study is measured by data envelopment analysis (DEA). The efficient centers and reference units for inefficient centers are identified by analyzing the efficiency of sta- tions. Railway stations are analyzed using an output-oriented slack-based measure (SBM) model with the constant returns to scale assumption. The performance of the station is evaluated by the inputs of the total station area, the number of platforms, the number of staff, the number of available seats, the total cost of the station, and the outputs of the number of passengers trans- ported, the number of trains stopped, and the total revenue of the station. The ranking results showed that six stations of Tehran, Mashhad, Shahroud, Zanjan, Qom, and Kerman were efficient with the score of one, and 13 stations were inefficient, which Dorud, with an efficiency of 0.283, had the lowest efficiency. Finally, for inefficient stations, the surplus values of inputs and slack values of outputs were provided to improve the efficiency. Given that the case study is one of the few studies in evaluating the efficiency of railway stations by slack-based measure model, the research provides managerial insights to improve the perfor- mance of stations. This can be considered as the main contribution of the study.