Intelligent and decarbonized technology investment strategies for green port operations considering port congestion and shippers’ decarbonization preference

Technology investments are widely adopted in port operations for efficiency improvement and carbon emissions reduction. This paper uses game models and equilibrium analysis to investigate the port’s technology investment strategy (TIS) in an emission-concerned supply chain under both monopoly and competition cases. According to real-world practices, TISs for green operations are divided into decarbonization-oriented strategy (D strategy), intelligence-oriented strategy (I strategy), and mixed strategy (M strategy). The D strategy directly reduces carbon emissions and attracts shippers with the decarbonization preference. The I strategy improves efficiency, reduces port congestion, and indirectly reduces carbon emissions. For methodology contributions, traditional game research usually neglects the interaction effects of multiple technologies, and complex environment to simplify models. However, our model captures both the indirect effect of the I technology and the direct effect of the D technology with decision constraints under both monopoly and competition cases. Our conclusions are comprehensive and closer to reality. We find that first, under monopoly/competition case, the optimal strategy varies among M, D, and I strategies /MM, DD, II, and NN strategies, depending on investment cost coefficient, market size, and shippers’ decarbonization preference. Second, although monopoly and competition cases show similar trends, competition introduces unique outcomes due to the prisoner’s dilemma effect. This study can help ports to make reliable decisions on green operation.