Water leakages and unplanned water supply interruptions are relevant variables in the provision of drinking water since they directly impact customers and the economic and environmental performance of water companies. For the first time, in this study, we estimated specific efficiency scores for these two quality-of-service variables using the multi-directional data envelopment analysis technique for a sample of 21 Chilean water companies over the 2007–2018 period. Unlike previous studies, this methodological approach allowed us to estimate potential savings for both quality-of-service variables. The results indicate that the Chilean water industry could improve its efficiency over water leakage and unplanned water supply interruption by 28.6% and 52.5%, respectively, while supplying the same volume of drinking water. It is estimated that water companies could save around 48 million cubic metres of drinking water per year. Savings on unplanned water supply interruptions for the Chilean water industry are estimated to be at the level of 62,419 h per year.

漏水和计划外供水中断是饮用水供应的相关变量，因为它们直接影响客户以及供水公司的经济和环境绩效。在本研究中，我们首次使用多向数据包络分析技术对 2007-2018 年期间的 21 家智利水务公司样本估计了这两个服务质量变量的具体效率得分。与以前的研究不同，这种方法论方法使我们能够估计两个服务质量变量的潜在节省。结果表明，在供应相同数量的饮用水的情况下，智利供水行业在漏水和计划外供水中断方面的效率可分别提高 28.6% 和 52.5%。据估计，自来水公司每年可节省约 4800 万立方米的饮用水。据估计，智利供水行业在计划外供水中断方面节省的时间为每年 62,419 小时。