Research Article

Performance and efficiency measurement in urban transportation: an empirical assessment with Entropy and data envelopment analysis

Volume: 15 Number: 4 December 15, 2025
TR EN

Performance and efficiency measurement in urban transportation: an empirical assessment with Entropy and data envelopment analysis

Abstract

Urban public transportation, a crucial element of urban life, is one of the key indicators determining a city's level of development. The urban public transportation sector, a standard solution to many problems experienced in metropolitan cities, such as traffic congestion, air pollution, noise, and excessive energy consumption, makes it imperative to use resources best and improve service quality. This study aims to evaluate the efficiency of public transportation systems in eight metropolitan municipalities in Türkiye using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Furthermore, the entropy method assessed the relative importance of each input and output variable. The findings guide municipalities and contribute to the literature. It demonstrates that inefficient municipalities can identify potential areas for improvement by examining the practices of their benchmark, efficient municipalities. This study provides an empirical assessment of the bus systems of eight metropolitan municipalities in Türkiye using DEA and Entropy weighting methods, offering actionable insights for optimizing resource utilization, enhancing public transport service quality, and informing the development of sustainable urban mobility policies. As a result, these findings directly contribute to municipalities increasing the efficiency of their public transport systems and improving sustainable acceleration mobility policies.

Keywords

Data envelopment analysis , Efficiency , Entropy method , Urban public transportation

References

  1. Barbaros, F. (2022). Batı Karadeniz Havzası yağış değişkenliklerinin entropi tabanlı bir yaklaşımla değerlendirilmesi. Gümüşhane Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Dergisi, 12(1), 344-356. https://doi.org/10.17714/gumusfenbil.995514
  2. Charnes, A., Cooper, W.W., & Rhodes, E. (1978). Measuring efficiency of decision-making units. European Journal of Operational Research, 2, 429–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/0377-2217(78)90138-8
  3. Colbert, A., Levary, R. R. & Shaner, M.C. (2000). determining the relative efficiency of mba programs using DEA. European Journal of Operational Research, 125(3), 656–669. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-2217(99)00275-1
  4. Dinçtürk, C., & Açıksöz, S. (2022). Kent gelişiminde sürdürülebilirliği yakalama kaygısı: Bartın örneği. Gümüşhane Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Dergisi, 12(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.17714/gumusfenbil.894107
  5. Emrouznejad, A., & Yang, G. (2018). A survey and analysis of the first 40 years of scholarly literature in DEA: 1978–2016. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 61, 4–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2017.01.008
  6. Forouzandeh, F., Arman, H., Hadi-Vencheh, A. & Rahimi, A.M. (2022). A combination of DEA and AIMSUN to manage big data when evaluating the performance of bus lines. Information Sciences, 618, 72–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2022.10.044
  7. Georgiadis, G., Politis, I. & Papaioannou, P. (2014). Measuring and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of bus public transport systems. Research in Transportation Economics, 48, 84–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2014.09.035
  8. Georgiadis, G., Kopsacheilis, A., Andreadis, I.M. & Politis, I. (2024). Analyzing efficiency and built environment factors for achieving convenient access to public transport: A Europe-wide DEA application. Environmental Science & Policy, 158, 103792.
  9. Gadepalli, R. & Rayaprolu, S. (2020). Factors affecting performance of urban bus transport systems in India: A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) based approach. Transportation Research Procedia, 48, 1789-1804.
  10. Güner, S., Taşkın, K. & Gürler, G. (2017). Şehir içi toplu taşıma hatlarının hizmet etkinliğinin veri zarflama analizi ile ölçülmesi: özel ve kamu işletmelerinin karşılaştırılması. İşletme Bilimi Dergisi, 5(3), 127-145. https://doi.org/10.22139/jobs.339869
APA
Battal Şal, Ö. (2025). Performance and efficiency measurement in urban transportation: an empirical assessment with Entropy and data envelopment analysis. Gümüşhane Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Dergisi, 15(4), 1133-1149. https://doi.org/10.17714/gumusfenbil.1753913