Comparison of Efficiency of Indian Railways with World Railways and Across Time Using Data Envelopment Analysis Technique

Abstract

Data Envelopment Analysis has been used to determine the efficiency of Indian Railway compared to other large World railways, as well as compare the relative performance of Indian Railway zones and performance of Indian Railways across time. It is found that Chinese Railways, Indian Railways, Japan Railways,Russian Federation railroads, Italy FS Spa and USA Railroads are the most efficient railways amongst the largest World Railways when all the critical inputs are considered for which data is available. Further, Central Railway, East Coast Railway and North Central Railway are found to be the most efficient railway zones of the Indian Railways.Similarly, the performance of the Indian Railways has been improving over the years, with the best performance being for the year 2011-12.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis, railways, India

JEL Classification: C44, C53