The impact of penalties, incentives, and monitoring costs on the stakeholders’ decision-making behaviors in non-compliance drone operations

As an automated assistive tool, drones have revolutionized industrial activities and brought numerous potential benefits to society. However, irresponsible drone users often disregard compliance with regulations, leading to new challenges in drone usage. Although governments have implemented punishment and incentive mechanisms to prevent non-compliant drone operations, the extent to which they can effectively deter such activities remains unclear. To address this gap, the study employed evolutionary game theory to assess the impacts of penalties for non-compliance, incentives for public monitoring, and monitoring costs for the government on the multiple stakeholders' decision-making behaviors (SDBs). The study also used the Chinese construction market data to simulate how penalties, incentives, and monitoring costs influence SDBs. The numerical simulations reveal that penalties and incentives could reduce drone users' non-compliant operations, but this effect is useful only if the penalties and incentives exceed a certain value. In China, drone users' non-compliant operations can be controlled when penalties for drone users exceed 12,000 yuan, and incentives for the public's monitoring exceed 170 yuan/day. The current Chinese government's penalties that were administered for non-compliant drone operations have not achieved a deterrent effect, but the incentive is feasible. These findings provide a fresh insight into the decision-making behaviors of stakeholders in non-compliant drone operations. Additionally, the tripartite evolutionary game model developed in this study can assist other countries in determining optimal values for penalties, incentives, and monitoring costs to mitigate non-compliant drone operations effectively.