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Business & Economics

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SERVICES OF URBAN TRANSPORT OPERATORS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Miroslav Zizka

ABSTRACT. The article deals with the highly relevant issue of assessing the performance of urban transport companies in terms of their efficiency and effectiveness. The non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method was used as the main assessment tool. The text is divided into three interrelated parts. In the first part, the literature review was conducted focusing particularly on the use of the DEA method in assessing public transport performance and the inputs and outputs used in such assessment. The second part of the paper presents the research methodology. DEA CCR and BCC models were used to assess 19 most important urban public transport operators of the Czech Republic. The main data sources were the annual report of the Association of Transport Companies (SDP) and the Magnus Web database of companies from which the financial indicators of transport companies were obtained. The companies were assessed both in terms of the transport process (technical efficiency) and in terms of the consumer process (service effectiveness) as well as the business process (cost efficiency). The results of the research (the third part of the article) showed that the companies had room for improvement at all three levels of performance. This was mainly due to their low scale efficiency. It was also found that both efficiency and effectiveness were influenced by the size of the population that was served by urban transport and the history and tradition of transport in the given city or town .

KEYWORDS:  urban public transport, Data Envelopment Analysis, technical efficiency, service effectiveness, cost efficiency, Czech Republic.

JEL classification:  C61, R41.