Evolutionary game analysis of the illegal occupancy behavior of the motorway emergency lane

In China, it is very common for drivers to illegally occupy the motorway emergency lane; this behavior arouses widespread public concern, as it threatens traffic safety. The goal of the current research was to explore the behavioral motivation that leads drivers to illegally occupy the motorway emergency lane to provide a theoretical foundation for discouraging this behavior. First, a payoff matrix of drivers and traffic administration departments was constructed. Then, a driver payoff questionnaire and a traffic administration department payoff questionnaire were developed and administered; the regression analysis based on the ordinary least squares was applied to the results to determine the weight coefficients of the payoff influence variables. In addition, based on the established payoff matrix, an evolutionary game model of drivers and traffic administration departments was established. The local stability principle of a dynamic system was applied to determine the evolutionarily stable strategy of different strategy payoff relationships, and specific administrative measures based on the evolutionarily stable strategy were presented. Finally, the strategy selection processes of both players were simulated before and after the adjustments to payoff influence variables. The simulation results showed that the presented model can reflect the actual decision-making processes of both players; the adjustment of the payoff influence variables made both players’ decision-making process evolves toward the ideal state. By systematically exploring the strategy selection processes of both players, this study provides a new way to analyze the behavioral motivation and offers traffic administration departments a theoretical foundation for governing this behavior.