Strategic Coopetition among Transportation Service Providers considering Supply-Demand Congestion Effects and Bargaining Power

The advanced developments in information technology have enabled resource exchanges among different transportation service providers (TSPs). One can offer its mobility resources (e.g., vehicles, charging facilities, parking spaces, etc.) to the other (even its competitors) to gain rewards. They then compete for mobility service users by setting the service prices simultaneously. There are three strategies that TSPs might choose: (i) resource seller-only strategy, (ii) service provider-only strategy, and (iii) multichannel strategy, in which a TSP simultaneously sells ride resources and maintains its own transport service. We study the optimal strategies of resource exchange and pricing for two TSPs using a sequential-move game. In the first stage, we develop a Nash bargaining game to characterize the interactive resourcemoney-exchange process. The mobility resource price is modeled as a two-part tariff in terms of the exchange quantities. In the second stage, we develop a duopoly competition game to characterize the pricing strategy of the two TSPs. The utility of end users is affected by TSP’s prices and supply-demand congestion effects. By doing so, we can derive the conditions under which TSPs will adopt the above three strategies. Analytical results show that a “win-win’’ outcome can be achieved when the unit price decreases in the number of exchange mobility resources. We also find that regardless of how the service prices are set, as the units of exchange resources increase, the demand for resource sellers will decrease and the demand for resource buyers will increase.