Conflict Resolution in Competitive Liberalized Railway Market: Application of Game Theoretic Concepts

Abstract

Public–Private Partnership (PPP) approaches in provision of public infrastructure projects usually involve conflicts. A win–win situation would be the desired goal of such collaborations for both public and private parties. However, stakeholders’ behaviors might result in undesirable worse conditions. Identification and interpretation of the involved parties’ individualistic behaviors to PPP problems can be addressed by game theory where it describes the inclinations and interactions of different parties who are in search of satisfying their self-interest-based objectives rather than system-wide approaches. Outcomes predicted by game theory, which are based on individuality, often differ from those presented by conventional optimization methods and they are more realistic. This study mainly scrutinizes the applicability of game theory into PPP rail projects and conflict resolution. The paper also evaluates the dynamic structure of the PPP problems and highlights the importance of consideration of the game’s evolutionary nature while studying such problems.