Productivity Management in Iranian Railway by Data Envelopment Analysis

Study of various transportation indicators could be an appropriate criterion in evaluating the performance of the existing railways throughout the globe. This study was carried out to investigate the performance of rolling stock of Iranian railway using productivity analysis. In order to solve the problems, some solutions were provided by productivity management cycle steps. At the first step, it was tried to find how appropriate the rolling stock used in Iranian railway is. To evaluate productivity of rolling stock, data envelopment analysis method was used; besides railways specific indicators and partial indicators of rolling stock were measured. Consequently, during 1390-1394(2011-2015), the performance of rolling stocks was inefficient; however, rolling stocks were efficient in 1395(2016). At the next step, rolling stock productivity and its bottlenecks were analyzed according to railway performance, railway expert’s opinions, and previous studies. Questionnaires were answered by 20 experts. Cronbach's alpha reliability with measured value of 0.899 was proven. Productivity improvement strategies are extracted from the results of these analyses and will be used to prioritize on the basis of comparing the importance and the current situation.