A performance evaluation model for railway transportation companies using multi-criteria decision making methods

Performance evaluation aims to produce objective and quantitative information about the performance of an organization to support making managerial decisions and improving performance. In this study, it is targeted to evaluate the performance of the freight train operating companies (TOC) in the railway transportation sector which was liberalized with Law No. 6461 entering into force in 2013 in Turkey. In the study, firstly, the concept of performance in railways is analyzed, and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be used in evaluating the performance of railway freight train operating companies are determined. AHP and fuzzy AHP methods are utilized to determine the relative weights of the specified KPIs. In the last stage of the study, by using the KPI weights determined, the performances of freight train operating companies in Turkey are evaluated using the EDAS method which is one of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods. Other MCDM methods, TOPSIS, PROMETHEE II and COPRAS, are applied to support the results of EDAS. Sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate how the changes in the relative weights of the KPIs effect results.