With economic and social development, the demand for railway transport is increasing, and improving its efficiency is essential for sustainable growth of the sector worldwide. This study investigated railway transport in 16 countries from 2010 to 2018 via a three-stage data envelopment analysis modelling approach to empirically evaluate the corresponding efficiencies while eliminating the influence of the external environment and statistical noise. The results show that Switzerland (0.993), the UK (0.966), and the USA (0.966) top the first-stage efficiency (named comprehensive efficiency) calculation, and the comprehensive efficiency of railway transport has continuously increased over the past years for most countries. The external environment affects the efficiency of railway transport; however, the strength and direction of its impact vary. Railway density improves efficiency, while road density has the opposite effect. In the third stage, China (0.973), the USA (0.969), and the UK (0.906) presented the highest efficiency (real efficiency) estimation, which was further decomposed into pure and scale efficiency. The 16 countries considered present similar pure efficiencies, but significantly different scale efficiencies, implying a relatively low potential for efficiency enhancement via technological improvement. Policy opportunities to promote the railway sector's efficiency lie in implementing real efficiency-oriented governance strategies, piloting resource inputs by differentiating the influence of the external environment, and strengthening the competitiveness of railway transport to achieve economies of scale.

该文章以“Efficiency of railway transport: A comparative analysis for 16 countries”为题，发表在《Transport Policy》