• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.35-47
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• 2004

Using data envelopment analysis, this paper annually estimates Malmquist total factor productivity indices and decomposes them into productive efficiency change, technical change, and scale change components for three publicly-owned rail transit properties: the Seoul Subway Corporation(SSC), the Seoul Metropolitan Electrified Railways Sector of Korea National Railroad (SMESRS) and the Busan Urban Transit Authority (BUTA). The paper then conceptualizes that the property produces a single output(car-kilometers) using four inputs(labor, electricity, car and maintenance, and track) and uses unbalanced panel data consisted of annual observations on SSC, SMESRS and BUTA. The results show that the average annual growth rate of productivity of the three properties is 6.6 percent, which is 0.5 percent less than the average annual increasing rate of their labor price. They also show that the greatest part of the growth in productivity is explained by technical change and to a lesser degree by scale change and changes in productive efficiency though each of the three components contributes more than 20 percent to the growth in productivity, These results suggest that the three properties should base the increasing rate of their wages on the growth rate of their productivity and utilize existing technologies more efficiently prior to introducing new ones to raise their productivity, and that all the three components should be considered to evaluate their productivity more correctly.