The performance of urban transportation modes is a critical issue for people's mobility. This research
analyses various transportation modes in 285 cities across the world from 2009 to 2012, exploring ef-
ficiency levels with a focus on productive capacity slacks. The idea is to better apprehend the resilience of
different transport modes in terms of absorbing demand shocks, shedding some light not only in terms of
the intrinsic characteristics of each mode but also on the demographic context. A novel approach derived
from a two-stage combination of Stochastic Data Envelopment Analysis (SDEA) and Beta Regression was
used to support the findings, which indicate the concentration of productive slacks on heavy metro and
the need of specific solutions for mid-sized cities. Policy implications are then derived