Performance evaluation of Tour de France cycling teams using Data Envelopment Analysis

This paper uses a robust (order-m) Data Envelopment Analysis approach to evaluate the efficiency of Tour de France cycling teams for the period 2007- 2011. Since there are multiple ways in which this event can be successful for a cycling team, we take it that managers face strategic input decisions regarding team and rider characteristics. Specifically, we distinguish between ranking teams, sprint teams, and mixed teams, and compute for each of these an efficiency score as due to the team’s performance relative to similarly classified teams and an efficiency score that is the consequence of the team type. We find that ranking teams are generally more efficient than other types.