Author(s)

Jaesung Choi¹, David C. Roberts², EunSu Lee³

¹Transportation and Logistics Program, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA.
²Department of Agribusiness & Applied Economics, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA.
³Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA.

This study reviews productivity growth in the five major transportation industries in the United States (airline, truck, rail, pipeline, and water) and the pooled transportation industry from 2004 to 2011. We measure the average productivity for these eight years by state in each transportation industry and the annual average productivity by transportation industry. The major findings are that the U.S. transportation industry shows strong and positive productivity growth except that in the years of the global financial crisis in 2007, 2008, and 2010, and among the five transportation industries, the rail and water sectors show the highest productivity growth in 2011.

DEA Malmquist Productivity Index, Productivity Growth, U.S. Transportation Industry

Choi, J. , Roberts, D. and Lee, E. (2015) Productivity Growth in the Transportation Industries in the United States: An Application of the DEA Malmquist Productivity Index. American Journal of Operations Research, 5, 1-20. doi: 10.4236/ajor.2015.51001.