Incorporating individual preference and network influence on choice behavior of electric vehicle sharing using agent-based model

Abstract

Electric vehicle sharing (EVS) have been obtaining great support from governments and enterprises in several countries due to many potential advantages, such as reducing the car use cost, lowering pollution emissions and so on. However, because EVS programs are still in the early development stage and have not yet widely gained public praise, the EVS adoption ratio is not high currently. Thus, from the comprehensive perspective of social network influence and consumers’ choice behavior theory, this paper surveyed the EVS using willingness and actual social network, proposed methods to calculate individual and social network utility, and then established an agent-based EVS choice behavior diffusion model (the choice behavior diffusion is essentially individuals’ cognition and adoption of innovative things); finally MATLAB software was used to simulate the diffusion model. The simulation results present: the final EVS choice proportions of a worker group and a student group are 20.8% and 35.7% respectively; the EVS choice behavior spreads faster in the worker group but the final EVS choice proportion is higher in the student group; the individuals’ heterogeneity accelerates the diffusion speed but reduces the final EVS choice proportion; the seed customers’ quantity and indegree have remarkable positive influence on the EVS choice behavior diffusion. Based on these conclusions, suggestions are put forward for government policies and business activities to promote the market diffusion of EVS.