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Performance evaluation of the Taiwan railway administration

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Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of centralized allocation and optimization of railway resources on overall operational efficiency of the railway industry. Its results are intended to help Taiwan railway industry in resource allocation and reduction of organization resistance caused by resource deployment in Taiwan. For this purpose, this study proposes and divides resource reallocation into long-, middle-, and short-term plans, with three resource adjustment programs. These programs consider different geographical ranges and resource conditions of personnel and equipment in resource allocation by using a two-phase centralized data envelopment analysis. Conducted in 2011, the Taiwan railway data analysis indicated that high overall output that was attributed to efficient allocation of resources induced large-scale organizational changes and adjustments (such as staff reduction) in the railway industry. These changes resulted in widespread organization resistance. Nonetheless, this process enabled the railway industry in Taiwan to achieve balance between output and organization resistance under different environments efficiently.

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Notes

  1. Giménez-García et al. (2007) identified the excess input units from inefficient DMUs and then reallocated these extra input units to other efficient DMUs. Thereafter, new output targets for efficient and inefficient DMUs were set based on existing amount of input units.

  2. Given the distance among all transportation service segments, the middle-term plan cancels the cross-segment limitation of the long-term plan, that is, resources can be adjusted in every transportation service segment only. To improve operation performance of all stations in a short time, the short-term plan restricts resource adjustments in every transportation service segment, and these adjustments cannot cross the station level.

  3. In Program 2, the model content is similar to that of Program 1 with the total number for each business personnel, traffic officer, and automatic ticket booth remaining unchanged. Thus, the needed modification is less than Eqs. (3.2)–(3.3) by equal notations. Adjustments in the business personnel and traffic officers in Phase 2 (i.e., Eqs. 3.11 and 3.14) are made by comparing them with automatic ticket booths (Eqs.  3.17 and 3.18). The sum of business personnel/traffic officers after the adjustment is equal to the sum of business personnel/traffic officers before the adjustment, similar to Eqs. (3.13) and (3.16).

  4. TRA can only increase or decrease the number of business personnel in each train station (but the total number is decreased) in Program 3 because of the different duties of employees. The total number of traffic officers and automatic ticket booths remains unchanged. The model contents of Program 3 are similar to those in Program 1 in the long-term plan. Only the ones less than or equal to the symbol of model Eq. (3.2) and Eqs. (3.11)–(3.13) are changed to the equal symbol. The remaining parts of model contents are the same with Program 1.

  5. Here, we have to note some omissions in concepts. As a result of constraints of adjustable resources in Eqs. (3.10)–(3.24), Eq. (3.11) is the sum of Eq. (3.12), Eq. (3.14) is the sum of Eq. (3.15), and Eq. (3.17) is the sum of Eq. (3.18). Thus, Eqs. (3.11), (3.14), and (3.17) are redundant and can be omitted when calculating efficiency.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Management, Chang Jung Christian University, Tainan City, Taiwan, ROC

    Bo Hsiao

  2. Department of Accountancy, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, Tainan City, 701-1, Taiwan, ROC

    LihChyun Shu & Ding-Jiun Wang

  3. Department of Transportation Science, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan, ROC

    Ming-Miin Yu & Li-Kang Shen

Authors
  1. Bo Hsiao
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  2. LihChyun Shu
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  3. Ming-Miin Yu
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  4. Li-Kang Shen
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  5. Ding-Jiun Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to LihChyun Shu.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Tables 11, 12, 13.

Table 11 Long-term policy
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Appendix 2

Table 12 Middle-term policy
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Appendix 3

Table 13 Short-term policy
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Hsiao, B., Shu, L., Yu, MM. et al. Performance evaluation of the Taiwan railway administration. Ann Oper Res 259, 119–156 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-016-2190-8

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