Analysis of Benchmarking Techniques for Application in Pavement Management

Abstract

Benchmarking has been adopted by private organisations in search of commercial efficiency gains and public sector organisations in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability. One such sector that has considerable potential to benefit from benchmarking is the transport sector. Focusing on the pavement management of road networks, this paper reviews a number of popular benchmarking techniques cited in the literature and undertakes a comparative analysis of their suitability with respect to a number of selection criteria. The audience for the paper is researchers and practitioners in pavement management and, consequently, the benchmarking techniques presented range from simple ratios or regression analyses to more complex frontier-based methods incorporating optimisation of weightings. Two of these frontier-based methods, Data Envelopment Analysis, a non-parametric data-orientated approach, and Stochastic Frontier Analysis, a parametric stochastic approach, are shown to be the most suitable for use in the pavement management sector. As the true level of efficiency is unknown in benchmarking, it is not possible to determine which technique is the best. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, however, we have stated a preference for Data Envelopment Analysis recognising that its non-parametric form offers a possible advantage in pavement management given the complexity and number of influencing variables.

Keywords: Benchmarking, Efficiency, Data envelopment analysis, Pavement management, Performance measurement