This study investigates a rail-water multimodal transport system composed of a railway company, a liner company, and an emerging multi-modal operator. Based on the co-opetition game, we discuss decision strategy preference and conflict from a multi-stakeholder perspective to optimize individual profit and system efficiency. It is found that although the invasion of multi-modal operators into the market poses a threat to competition, their service effort directly affects the market demand and promotes the profits of each carrier. The free-riding and market expansion effects triggered by service effort interact with each other. However, multi-modal operators can cope with the negative impact of the free-riding effect through the service strategy and promote system efficiency optimization. Specifically, discussing each carrier's decision-making preferences for maximizing profits, we find that the multi-modal operators' strategy can achieve the Pareto optimal of triple-win, and the system efficiency is also optimal simultaneously.
Keywords: Co-opetition; Conflict analysis; Rail-water multimodal transport system; Service effort; Sustainable logistics.
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