Next Stop: Restructuring?: A Nonparametric Efficiency Analysis of German Public Transport Companies

Christian Hirschhausen and Astrid Cullmann

No 831, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: In this paper, we present a nonparametric comparative efficiency analysis of 179 communal public transport bus companies in Germany (1990-2004). We apply both deterministic data envelopment analysis (DEA) and bootstrapping to test the robustness of our estimates and to test the hypothesis of global and individual constant returns to scale. We find that the average technical efficiency of German bus companies is relatively low. We observe that the industry appears to be characterized by increasing returns to scale for smaller companies. These results would imply increasing pressure on bus companies to restructure.

Keywords: Public transport; buses; efficiency analysis; nonparametric methods; DEA; bootstrapping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 L11 L51 L92 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 p.
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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