Game-Based Competition Models between Bus Routes

Competition behavior normally plays a role in bus network operations. As an example, transport operators can use overlapping routes to compete for passengers in order to maximize their profits, but they may employ insufficient efforts to analyze this behavior. In this paper, an operating profit–optimization model is first formulated for a single bus route to illustrate that competition between bus routes is important in bus networks. Then, taking bus headway as decision variable, perfect-competition and imperfect-competition models are formulated for two bus routes to maximize every route’s operating profit. Finally, the two competition models are used to conduct numerical case studies, in which increasing laws of operating profit are founded for each route in competition with the changing headway and departure strategy choices of two bus routes are analyzed using game theory and decision theory. The competition models proposed in this paper can be employed by public transport operators to generate optimal bus headways, and they also confirm theoretically that competition is helpful in improving bus service efficiency.