Time: January 27, 2026 (Tuesday), 10:00–11:30

Venue: Room 524, Siyuan Building, School of Management at Fudan University

Topic: Ride-Hailing Platform Coopetition under Fairness-Aware Pricing Regulation 

Speaker: Yuanguang Zhong, Professor, School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology

Host: Tianjun Feng, Professor, School of Management at Fudan University

Abstract: 

Ride-hailing aggregators have emerged to integrate multiple ride-hailing companies onto single platforms, enabling customers to choose rides from various providers. These platforms attract many small companies that manage their own driver pools but rely entirely on aggregators to connect with customers. For large ride-hailing companies, partnering with aggregators can potentially expand demand but may impact their existing customers and intensify direct price competition. This raises critical questions: Should large companies join these platforms? What are the implications of such a partnership for small companies, aggregators, consumers, and the society?

In a ride-hailing market involving a large company, a small company, an aggregator, and loyal and disloyal customers, we apply a game-theoretical framework that examines both non-joint and joint settings without/with price regulation. Without regulation, we find that the large company employs a price discrimination strategy by setting a low price on its own app and a higher price on the aggregator  (a strategy corroborated by real-world data). This strategy intensifies price competition, ultimately benefiting only the large company while negatively impacting the others. To address these adverse effects, we propose a fairness-aware pricing regulation, imposing an external fairness constraint on the large company's price difference across its app and the platform. With sufficiently stringent regulation, we find that, despite potentially higher prices from both companies, all players can benefit from the partnership due to reduced competition and enhanced pooling effects of drivers.

Our work provides valuable insight into regulating the ride-hailing industry under fairness constraints. Contrary to the conventional view that higher prices negatively impact customers, we reveal that total consumer surplus can improve under such regulation. Our analysis suggests that large companies should partner with aggregators to maximize their benefits. Meanwhile, small companies, aggregators, and customers can benefit by advocating for stringent fairness-aware pricing regulations.

Bio:

Yuanguang Zhong is Deputy Dean and Professor (Level II) at the School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, a Xinghua Distinguished Scholar (a university-level talent title), and a PhD advisor. He serves as Vice Chair of the Behavioral Operations Research and Behavioral Operations Management Branch of the Operations Research Society of China (ORSC), and as a Council Member of the Chinese Association of Management Science and Engineering (CAMSE), among other professional roles. His research focuses on supply chain inventory optimization, inventory sharing and allocation, optimization theory and methods with applications, and platform operations. His representative work has been published in leading international journals such as Management Science (MS), Operations Research (OR), Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM), and Production and Operations Management (POM). 

Professor Zhong has led multiple projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), including the Young Scientists Fund (Category A), the General Program, and the Young Scientists Fund (Category C), all of which concluded with an Outstanding rating. He has also undertaken enterprise-commissioned projects for CSG Technology Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Power Supply Bureau of CSG, and Yangteng Technology Co., Ltd.. He has been selected for the High-Level Talent Program (Young Scholar Program) of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (MOE). His research achievements have earned him numerous awards, including the Third Prize of the MOE's Outstanding Scientific Research Achievements in Higher Education Institutions, the First and Second-Class Prizes of the Guangdong Provincial Award for Outstanding Achievements in Philosophy and Social Sciences, the Third Prize of the Anhui Provincial Science and Technology Award, and the OMEGA Best Paper Award.