Research on transmission mechanism of port investments in inland transport systems on their horizontal cooperation

In the context of ports’ efforts to improve the convenience of inland transportation services in order to gain competitive advantages,and in order to prevent the harm caused by uncontrolled competition among ports,this paper constructs an infinite iterative game model in order to explore the interactions between port investment and horizontal cooperation,and at the same time analyzes the impacts of factors such as investment conversion coefficients,the valueadded of the cargo owner’s utility,and the valuation of the future cash flow on the equilibrium strategy.The following results are obtained:firstly,ports will not cooperate in a single-game scenario,and cooperation is only possible in the process of repeated games.From the perspective of long-term games,the exclusive port investment will reduce the stability of cooperation between ports.Secondly,the valuation of future cash flows by ports determines the long term stable state between ports,while the investment conversion efficiency and investment scale will affect the equilibrium investment strategy of ports,Finally,under the same investment scenario,the profits obtained by port investment through cooperation is higher than that obtained through competition,so horizontal cooperation will promote port investment.