ABSTRACT

Previous studies have applied various benchmarking approaches to measure the performance of organisations that are responsible for maintaining the pavements under their jurisdiction. However, there is a paucity of research investigating the influence of uncontrollable ‘environmental’ factors, such as climate and subgrade type, on the efficiency of these organisations. Quantifying and evaluating the influence of such factors has been a difficult proposition, with previous attempts being qualitative and subjective. This study introduces a set of quantitative and objective indicators that reflect the relative difficulties faced by road agencies in New Zealand, in terms of climate and subgrade type, and proceeds to aggregate these environmental factors on an agency by agency basis. It then demonstrates the influence of these uncontrollable variables on the performance of the agencies through comparison to a baseline benchmarking model, using a non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis approach. The resulting efficiency differences, due to the external operating environment, underlines the significance of including these variables when benchmarking to enable a fair comparison of pavement management efficiency.

摘要

以前的研究已经应用了各种基准测试方法来衡量负责维护其管辖范围内的人行道的组织的绩效。然而，很少有研究调查诸如气候和路基类型等不可控制的“环境”因素对这些组织的效率的影响。量化和评估这些因素的影响一直是一个困难的命题，以前的尝试是定性的和主观的。本研究引入了一组量化和客观的指标，反映新西兰道路机构在气候和路基类型方面面临的相对困难，并逐个机构汇总这些环境因素。然后，通过使用非参数数据包络分析方法与基准基准模型进行比较，证明了这些不可控变量对机构绩效的影响。由于外部运营环境而产生的效率差异强调了在进行基准测试时包括这些变量以实现对路面管理效率的公平比较的重要性。