Evolutionary game with differentiated subsidy strategy for shared bicycles

ObjectiveThe shared bike enterprises have irrational phenomena, e.g., cost waste and supply-demand mismatch in the unified subsidy strategy. Starting from the profit and loss relations of interaction among the government, shared bike enterprises and users, this study investigates the internal mechanism of enterprises' differentiated subsidy strategies on the evolutionary trend of each subject's strategies. It aims to provide solid theoretical support for enterprises to accurately reduce operation and management costs, avoid vicious competition and realize sound industrial development.MethodFirst, the strategic behaviors of each subject were abstractly expressed by symbols to construct the profit-loss matrix of tripartite evolutionary game and the replication dynamic equations of each subject. Then, six system equilibrium points and the ideal stable strategy point were solved with Jacobian matrix. The local stability analysis was carried out. Finally, MATLAB was used for numerical simulation test to verify the rationality of parameter settings and investigate the system evolution rule with different combinations of initial willingness choice probabilities of each subject.ResultThe initial willingness choice probabilities of government supervision and user usage significantly affect the evolution rate of shared bike enterprises choosing active operation and differentiated subsidy strategies. A reasonable differentiated subsidy scheme formulated by enterprises can effectively accelerate the evolution of users towards standardized use and active cooperation strategies; however, its influence on government's supervision strategy choice is extremely limited.ConclusionThe core insights on tripartite strategy evolution and market competition obtained from this study would accurately predict the direction of strategy choice of market subjects, provide targeted suggestions for relevant decision-makers on market intervention and control, and offer important references for shared bike enterprises to optimize subsidy schemes, improve market operation behaviors and scientifically control operating costs.