Abstract In recent years, customized bus (CB) is becoming an innovative model of the public transport system (PTS) in China. This service provides an advanced, timely, personalized, and flexible responses to the demand of the PTS, especially of commuters. Obviously, it could have an impact on public transport (PT) service. For instance, CB services influence the customers' variety-seeking behavior, which results in changes of customer options in different periods. Therefore, customers could be divided into different groups of preference. In this paper, we construct a two-period Hotelling game model by variety-seeking behavior and service level. The results show that, in the first stage, the departure frequency of CB and PT is influenced by variety-seeking behavior and service level. In the second stage, departure frequency is influenced by service level only. Next, although the departure frequency of bus impacts the changes of passenger ratios in different stages, service level appreciably impacts passenger number. From customer surplus and social welfare, we find that adjustment of service level can increase social welfare, which means that CB and PT will reach an optimum effect. The present work can provide a valuable reference to policymakers, practitioners, and others.

中文翻译：

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考虑客户多样化寻求行为和服务水平的客车定制化运营策略

摘要 近年来，客车（CB）正在成为我国公共交通系统（PTS）的创新模式。该服务针对 PTS 的需求，尤其是通勤者的需求，提供先进、及时、个性化和灵活的响应。显然，它可能会对公共交通 (PT) 服务产生影响。例如，CB服务会影响客户的品种寻求行为，导致不同时期客户选择的变化。因此，可以将客户分为不同的偏好组。在本文中，我们根据多样性寻求行为和服务水平构建了一个两期的 Hotelling 博弈模型。结果表明，在第一阶段，CB和PT的离开频率受品种寻求行为和服务水平的影响。在第二阶段，出发频率仅受服务水平的影响。其次，虽然公交车发车频率会影响不同阶段乘客比例的变化，但服务水平对乘客人数有显着影响。从顾客剩余和社会福利来看，我们发现调整服务水平可以增加社会福利，这意味着CB和PT会达到最佳效果。目前的工作可以为决策者、从业者和其他人提供有价值的参考。