Strategic Environmental Assessment of Land Transportation: An Application of DEA with Undesirable Output Approach

Chia-Nan Wang, Tran Quynh Le, Ching-Hua Yu, Hsiao-Chi Ling and Thanh-Tuan Dang
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Chia-Nan Wang: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung 80778, Taiwan
Tran Quynh Le: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung 80778, Taiwan
Ching-Hua Yu: Department of Air Transport Management, Kainan University, Taoyuan 33857, Taiwan
Hsiao-Chi Ling: Department of Marketing, Kainan University, Taoyuan 33857, Taiwan
Thanh-Tuan Dang: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung 80778, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: The efficiency of land transportation contributes significantly to determining a country’s economic and environmental sustainability. The examination of land transportation efficiency encompasses performance and environmental efficiency to improve system performance and citizen satisfaction. Evaluating the efficiency of land transportation is a vital process to improve operation efficiency, decrease investment costs, save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance environmental protection. There are many methods for measuring transportation efficiency, but few papers have used the input and output data to evaluate the ecological efficiency of land transportation. This research focuses on evaluating the environmental efficiency for land transportation by using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method with undesirable output to handle unwanted data. By using this, the paper aims to measure the performance of land transportation in 25 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in the period of 2015–2019, considered as 25 decision-making units (DMUs) in the model. For identifying the ranking of DMUs, four inputs (infrastructure investment and maintenance, length of transport routes, labor force, and energy consumption) are considered. At the same time, the outputs consist of freight transport and passenger transport as desirable outputs and carbon dioxide emission (CO 2 ) as an undesirable output. The proposed model effectively determines the environment-efficient DMUs in a very time-efficient manner. Managerial implications of the study provide further insight into the investigated measures and offer recommendations for improving the environmental efficiency of land transportation in OECD countries.

Keywords: OECD countries; environmental efficiency; undesirable output; decision-making units; data envelopment analysis; land transportation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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