2019 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Empirical studies on efficiency in urban railways in Japan: Evaluation of relative performance and the determinants of persistent and transient efficiency
| Project/Area Number |
18K12770
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
宋 娟貞 大阪大学, 経済学研究科, 助教 (70803203)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | Urban railway / SFA / technical efficiency / railway ownership / system type |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This research mainly aims to evaluate performance of urban rail system in Japan and to provide implications considering improvement of technical efficiency, by estimating the model which disentangles firm effects from persistent (time-invariant) and transient (time-varying) inefficiency. To achieve this purpose, this research implements both stochastic production frontier analysis to estimate efficiencies using novel dataset of urban railway operators in Japan from 2004 to 2015. This research mainly identifies the effects of exogenous factors influencing the efficiency by focusing on an ownership (Private, public and quasi-public) and system type (overground, underground and AGT/monorail) as well as management strategies (operating area, diversification). In particular, we focus on the service effectiveness which indicates how the operators deliver produced service to passengers efficiently by estimating output oriented production function. The results show that persistent inefficiency originating from the firm's fixed characteristics like ownership and system type is likely to dominate the operators technical inefficiency. Mostly, major private operators and overground system tend to perform well comparatively and it might be related to their strong motivation towards the market. In addition, the operator's temporary mistake in decision making or resource allocation barely influence the differences among the operators in urban area in Japan.
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