Competition and coordination strategies of shared electric vehicles and public transportation considering customer travel utility

With the rise of the sharing economy and the concept of green environmental protection and low-carbon travel, the emerging project of shared electric vehicles is booming. However, the accompanying coordination problem between shared electric vehicles and public transportation system needs to be urgently solved. In reality, customers' choice of travel mode is influenced by their own travel perceived utility. Thus, this paper will discuss the competition and coordination problem between shared electric vehicles and public transportation system from the perspective of customer travel utility. Considering the travel cost and comfort in the customer travel utility, the game models of shared electric vehicle and public transportation system in different scenarios are established by using competitive game and cooperative game. Then, the equilibrium solutions under different scenarios are obtained by solving the models. The analysis results show that shared electric vehicles would bring some beneficial improvements to the transportation system under certain circumstances. Furthermore, public transportation system should adopt a coordinative strategy with the shared electric vehicles to promote the total customer travel utility for the entire system. It is worth considering the improvement of the service quality of shared electric vehicle and public transportation, which would affect the rate of increasing in the total customer travel utility.

Automated summary

This paper discusses the competition and coordination problem between shared electric vehicles and public transportation system from the perspective of customer travel utility. By establishing game models and obtaining equilibrium solutions in different scenarios, it is found that shared electric vehicles can bring beneficial improvements to the transportation system under certain circumstances. Recommendations are given for public transportation system to adopt a coordinative strategy with shared electric vehicles to promote the total customer travel utility for the entire system.