Although China’s toll highways are world-renowned, they suffer from indisputable operational inefficiencies. Operationally, China’s toll highway sector is characterized by an administrative monopoly. In particular, governmental loan-repayment highways have such characteristics as franchising, monopoly, and “one highway by one company.” Hence, this study concentrates on the relationship between economic performance, administrative monopoly, and scale efficiency with respect to toll highways, and explores how the China-specific administrative monopoly affects the transformation of toll highways from scale to efficiency. Using the globally referenced data envelopment analysis- (DEA-) Malmquist Index, this study first measures the operational efficiency of China’s toll highway sector from 2010 to 2017. Based on provincial panel data, this paper then discusses the relationship between toll highway scale and economic performance through system-generalized method of moments estimation and verifies the status quo of the transformation of toll highways from scale to efficiency. From the provincial and industrial perspectives, this study further verifies how an administrative monopoly restricts the transformation from scale to total factor productivity and scale efficiency through the unique operation pattern in the toll highway sector. Finally, this study conducts an extended analysis of the relationship between operational efficiency and debt in the toll highway sector. The administrative monopoly is found to increase the debt burden of the toll highway sector and to have a negative impact on the long-term sustainability of the sector.
<p>Pipeline leakage inevitably occurs in the long-distance water transmission process. If a leak cannot be identified and processed promptly, it can cause severe economic losses or environmental pollution. This paper proposes a method to evaluate pipeline leakages in long-distance water transmission. The pipeline located in Liaoning Province was selected; it is 63.97-km long and runs from west Shenyang to Liaoyang city. Flowrate time-series data were obtained from two flowrate stations; the data were measured using ultrasonic flowmeters. The variance and mean values of flowrate time-series data were determined and used to evaluate whether pipeline leakage occurs. A Chi-Square test was used to test if the variance of a flowrate time-series was equal to a specified value. The results indicate the following: (1) the method of variance test can be used to evaluate whether the pipeline operation is abnormal or not; (2) when the variance test on time series data of flowrate is abnormal for more than two days, the pipeline leakage situation can be evaluated; (3) the combination of the variance test and the mean value analysis can help locate the leak position, which provides a reference for site personnel. The method proposed in this paper can detect pipeline leakage in a timely manner, and further ensure normal water transmission operation in many cities downstream.</p>
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