ABSTRACT

Measurement of efficiency levels of transport helps in identifying opportunities that enhance the public transport performance. This will facilitate effective and efficient management of fleets that provide public road transport and planning for interventions incase the sector needs improvement. Public transport sector is a key social facility that aims at improving the welfare of regions inhabitants. Across developing countries provision of efficient, fair and impartial road transport in urban areas with an ever increasing population, increasing transport demand and limited resources is a challenge. It is therefore of great need to evaluate the current efficiency levels of transport providers in Nairobi. Despite the massive reforms in the Kenya public transport by road there is still evidence of higher number of people in Nairobi opting to use other means of transport with walking being dominant. This study sought to measure the technical efficiency of public transport in Nairobi and compare their levels of efficiency in order to give a practical guideline on potential efficiency improvements. The study used stratified sampling in data collection from the operators that offer public transport by road in Nairobi. Stochastic frontier analysis was used to estimate efficiency levels. To achieve these objectives the study used data from 44 public transport SACCOs that had met the set requirements of NTSA during the study period. The results revealed that, there was a huge difference of technical efficiency that ranged from 98.32% for the most technically efficient firm to 27.86% for the least efficient firm. Analysis of SACCOs with respect to the vehicles they operate revealed that high carriage vehicle were more technically efficient with a mean of 68.27%. Firms that operated fourteen seater vehicle were the least efficient with a mean of 54.53%. The study therefore concluded that there exists diverse technical efficiency challenges in transport provision that continually pose threats to the achievement of efficient transport system. The study recommends the use of high sitting capacity buses because they are more efficient compared to low sitting capacity vehicles.