# Exploring and Modeling the Incentive Strategies of New Energy Ship Application in Yangtze River
## 1 Introduction
Meanwhile, due to no freight rate advantage for NESs in the Yangtze River and the high volatility of fuel prices, NESs have no cost advantage at present. * Insufficient energy supply facilities affect the implementation effect of alternative energy vessels. LNG fuel, methanol fuel, and hydrogen fuel are used as alternative fuels for these ships [28]. Inland shipping enterprises face difficulties in developing a favorable strategy due to extended investment cycles and the lack of a clearly defined NES development path, compounded by inadequate energy refueling resources. Switching to alternative fuels is an increasingly uncertain proposition [9], as the potential fuels for maritime use are not yet fully developed either technically or commercially. * The government's incentives for promoting NESs are a crucial factor. The government has issued some policies to promote and support the development of green ships [29]. These incentives can be divided into those for constructing and operating NESs, as well as tax regulations [30; 31]. Currently, there is a lack of relevant incentive policies aimed at promoting NESs in shipping along the Yangtze River. There are two main subjects involved in the above factor analysis. One is shipping enterprises and the other is the government. Given the inadequacy of incentive policies, it is imperative to investigate how the implementation of the policies can stimulate the recognition of NESs in the Yangtze River, with the ultimate goal of making its large-scale application a reality. To this end, there are two main questions addressed in our work:* How the government incentive policies affect NES application in the Yangtze River from a dynamic evolutionary perspective? * In the absence of government incentive policies, can shipping enterprises spontaneously apply NESs? In order to study the above questions, this work intends to establish an incentive model to explore the impact of government incentive policies on the application of NESs and to adopt appropriate strategies. Considering that this study involves the Yangtze River NES application and the government incentive policies, it is a dynamic changing process, which is affected by the cost, utility loss, rewards, tax amount, and other factors, and the evolutionary game is applicable to this multi-subject dynamic behavior analysis over time. Therefore, in this study, we use the evolutionary game theory to develop an incentive model of government incentive policies and NES application, discuss the evolutionary stability strategies, and analyze and compare the key influencing factors. This paper contributes to the government's effective incentive policies to promote the NES application. The remainder of this manuscript is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews the relevant literature. Section 2 proposes the incentive model construction, such as the assumption and the payoff matrix structure. Section 3 analyzes the incentive model and makes corresponding suggestions. Section 4 is the numerical simulation and analysis of the Yangtze River shipping practice. Section 5 summarizes the study's conclusions, limitations, and future recommendations.