Game Analyses Of Competition And Cooperation Between China-Europe Railway Express And Liner Shipping And Optimization Of Policies In The Context Of The Belt And Road Initiative

The “Belt and Road(B&R)Initiative” realizes the trade between Chinese and European cities through the China-Europe Railway Express(CERE)and the liner shipping,respectively.To promote the China-Europe trade,Chinese government implemented the CERE subsidy policy,which not only drives a rapid economic development of cities along the B&R initiative to a certain extent,but also brings a financial pressure to the government.On the other hand,Chinese government introduced the sulfur emission control area(SECA)policy in the Yangtze River inland and coastal area to reduce the emission pollution for liner shipping.How to balance the relationship between CERE and liner shipping is very important for the sustainable development of China-Europe trade.This paper focus on the game analyses of competition and cooperation between CERE and liner shipping and the optimization of the related policies so as to provide a theoretical support and scientific basis for scientific management of the China-Europe multi-modal freight system.Firstly,the optimization problem for CERE subsidy under different freight forwarding mechanisms is studied.Two social welfare maximization models under the freight forwarding mechanisms with or without platforms are proposed.Under mechanism without platform,each carrier canvasses cargo and bear a canvassing cost,and regulator subsidizes CERE carrier.Under mechanism with platform,the platforms convass cargo and regulator subsidizes CERE carrier or CERE platform.The results show that,for the mechanism without platform,its social welfare is higher than that of the mechanism with platform when the canvassing cost is low or the cargo value is low and high.However,when the canvassing cost exceeds a critical value or the cargo value is moderation,the social welfare of the mechanism without platform is lower than that of the mechanism with platform.Secondly,the collaborative optimization problem of CERE subsidy and liner shipping SECA coverage is explored.Two welfare maximization models are proposed to determine the optimal CERE subsidy and the optimal SECA coverage under competition and cooperation between CERE and liner shipping.The two carriers maximize their own profits under competition scenario,whereas they maximize the total profits under cooperation scenario.The results show that,the intermodal competition is better than the intermodal cooperation in terms of social welfare,consumer surplus and air pollution,though the cost of the carriers’ profits and total subsidy.The regulators can effectively control the adverse impact of an increase in fuel prices or air pollution cost on social welfare by adjusting CERE subsidy and SECA coverage.Finally,the multi-stage pricing problem of CERE subsidy and carbon tax is addressed in this paper,and a social welfare maximization model is proposed.In the proposed model,the optimal solutions of CERE subsidy and carbon tax with differential pricing and unified pricing schemes are compared.The properties of model solutions under the two schemes are analyzed,and the sensitivities of model parameters are analyzed.The results show that the optimal CERE subsidy and carbon tax with unified pricing are respectively equal to the averages of sum of those with differential pricing at each stage.In the stage of a lower CERE potential demand,the optimal subsidy with differential pricing is smaller than that with unified pricing,but in the stage of a higher CERE potential demand,the optimal subsidy with differential pricing is larger than that for unified pricing.No matter from the social welfare of each stage or the total social welfare,the differential pricing is always better than the unified pricing.