Operation decision model in a platform ecosystem for car-sharing service

Car-sharing platform (CSP) is becoming popular due to environmental friendliness and convenience. We consider the CSP ecosystem consisting of one CSP and one manufacturer, and others, and focus on CSP's two operation modes, including asset-heavy mode and asset-light mode. Under different operation modes, we construct game models for main ecosystem members based on exogenous and endogenous situations of the wholesale price and the revenue-sharing ratio, and analyze the CSP's decisions on the order quantity and service level, as well as the manufacturer's decision on the wholesale price or the revenue-sharing ratio. We find CSP ecosystem members' optimal decisions are affected by the CSP's dispatching capability, service cost coefficient, and new energy vehicle performance. The CSP and the manufacturer's preferences for two operation modes are obtained by comparing the optimal decisions and expected profits of main ecosystem members under different conditions. The conclusions provide important decision support for improving the CSP ecosystem's operational efficiency and driving the CSP ecosystem to build a more competitive operation system. This paper enriches the sharing platform ecosystem's connotation and expands its application scope from a modeling perspective.