Performance Evaluation of Transit Routes

Transit agencies aim to allocate limited resources properly and maximise ridership. Measuring the performance of individual transit routes within a transit system plays a critical role in identifying operational issues and increasing transit ridership. Addressing this need, this research develops a framework to evaluate operational effectiveness and spatial and temporal performance of individual bus routes within a transit network. With case study on Brisbane a network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model is adopted for efficiency analysis, and the double bootstrap model is applied for sensitivity analysis of DEA efficiency scores obtained to external factors. The developed framework enables transit agencies to evaluate and rank the performance of given bus routes, and then identify both internal and external sources of inefficiency. This should lead to better public transport design and operations.