Copyright © IFAC Transportation Systems Chania, Greece, 1997 ANALYSING TRANSPORTATION PUBUC AGENCIES PERFORMANCE USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS P. Carotenuto*, A. Coffari**, M. Gastaldi**, N. Levialdi** *Progerro Finalizzato Trasponi 2 - CNR, Viale deU'Universita 11 - 00185 Rome, Italy **Depanmenr of Production, System and Computer Science, University of Rome Tor Vergata - Via della Ricerca Scientifica - 00185 Rome, Italy Abstract. Performance analysis has gained increased attention now that transit organisations are emphasising efficiency and effectiveness objectives. In this paper the use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as a tool for assess the performance of Italian transit agencies and to compare them is focused. By using a single measure for cost efficiency, cost effectiveness and service effectiveness, the DEA model is applied to a sample of 63 Italian transit agencies serving both large metropolitan areas and medium and small cities. Key Words. Data Envelopment Analysis; mathematical model; performance evaluation; efficiency; effectiveness; urban systems. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the most relevant topic in urban traffic management is the development of integrated systems able to co-ordinate different technologies and applications, aiming at making the whole process of traffic and mobility efficient. The demographic and urban growth with the related increase of industrial, commercial and service activities, determine a growing mobility demand not supported by well organised public transit supply (Bielli, Carotenuto and Gastaldi, 1996). In fact, old networks have been updated without considering the system complexity, adding and overlapping new links to the old ones without considering the high costs of utilised human and physic resources and the system functionality for the users. Urban and metropolitan traffic areas are very complex and decision making is characterised by a large number of conflicting goals and objectives postulated by various groups. In going through the different phases of the decision making process, a decision context has to be defined according to the system analysis approach; then it is necessary to take into account the characteristics of considered decision makers, the realisable alternatives, the perspectives, the time horizon and the political and financial constraints. Improving the management of public 655 transit agencies is an alternative scenario. By 1986 to control costs and reduce the need for public assistance, the government has encouraged privatisation of services in several industrialised countries. While this has helped agencies shed unproductive services, it does not challenge management to confront internal deficiencies. The purpose of this paper is to assist agencies charged with reviewing the performance of public transit by providing them with a mathematical technique to analyse the efficiency with which service is produced and the effectiveness with which it is consumed (Chu, Fielding and Lamar, 1992). Research in public transit has been assisted by appropriate definitions of performance indicators. A large body of literature has emerged dealing with a wide set of measures (indexes, variations, ratios, etc.) of performance for transportation services (Henderson, Kwong and Adkins, 1991). This great availability of performance measures was followed by a number of research projects designed to reduce the set of measures to a manageable size. There is a general agreement that main impacts fall into two categories: efficiency and effectiveness. In classic economic terms, a production process is efficient if it is not possible to augment any output without