Evolutionary game of urban public traffic pricing linkage strategy

The policies of urban public transport are turning to integrate multi-strategies. With classifying bus operators into two partners: normal buses and high-level buses, an evolution game model for price integration strategy is proposed to identify the law of development of urban transport strategies. The model contains three elements: two bus operators, one price strategy set including price integration strategy and price independent strategy, and a pay-off matrix presenting the revenue of using different pricing strategies. The evolution routes and the evolution stable strategy (ESS) are deduced by the numerical calculation of evolution game model. Furthermore, the numerical results of Harbin transit system of China verify that the evolution routes of pricing strategies mainly depend on operator revenue derived from pricing strategies and the ESS are determined not only by revenue but the initial ratio of bus operators using each pricing strategy. Modeling the evolution process of bus price strategies is to provide a method for carrying on the integration of public transport system.