Using DEA to improve the efficiency of pupil transportation

Washington State, like many other states, spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to support the transportation of pupils to and from school. As with other state-funded activities, inefficiency increases costs and saps resources away from other critical state functions such as public and higher education, health care, transportation, and many others. In 2006, the state undertook a project to revise its pupil transportation funding formula and encourage its school districts to operate more efficiently. Together with Management Partnership Services, Inc., the state developed a DEA-based efficiency measurement system that it now uses to identify inefficient pupil transportation systems for management intervention. The system has identified potential first-year savings of roughly $33 million with recurrent annual savings of at least $13 million. The efficiency improvements could remove 312 school buses from the highways of Washington State.