Title: The US motor carrier industry: estimation of operational efficiency using DEA

Authors: Dinesh R. Pai

Addresses: Penn State Harrisburg, School of Business Administration, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, PA 7057, USA

Abstract: In this paper, a performance analysis of the US motor carriers is carried out from the perspectives of a shipper and a motor carrier. Various efficiency measures are estimated using Data Envelopment Analyses (DEAs) with publicly available financial data on a representative sample of 21 publicly listed motor carriers. The analysis reveals that the average efficiencies of US motor carriers have gradually increased during the study period; however, a majority of the carriers are scale-inefficient, which demonstrates potential savings through benchmarking input targets.

Keywords: DEA; USA; United States; motor carriers; operational efficiency; truckload; LTL; less-than-truckload; data envelopment analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2012.047222

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2012 Vol.12 No.2, pp.227 - 245

Published online: 28 Nov 2014 *

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