Design of an Intelligent Platoon Transit System towards Transportation Electrification

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Through the paper, the authors give an overview of platoon transit systems by highlighting the roles, needed subsystems, and development challenges of the electric-modular vehicles. 

Weakness – Section 2, the proposed concept, gives an intuitive vision of collaborative subsystems; here, the authors can bring more details (for example, the arguments for choosing only five subsystems). The title of the paper introduces confusion by the word “developing”.  The “Electrification” term is used only in the title.

Suggestion. Table 1 and related content should be moved from Section 2.4. The title of the paper should be changed. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Very interesting paper! It proposes an intelligent platoon transit system (IPTS) that uses electric modular vehicles (EMVs). The IPTS looks a very promising transport system that can address the problems of better vehicle capacity utilization, coordinating transfers between different routes, first/last-mile transport service. Some comments are provided for possible further revisions.

1, In Figure 5, the label of the x-axis is not only about the average occupancy rate of the bus, but also about the average occupancy rate of EMVs?

2, In Figure 7, to my understanding, the bus sign should appear on the benchmark line.

3, Table 1, change ‘different transports’ to ‘different transport modes’.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

This paper proposes an intelligent platoon transit system that can adapt capacity and allow en-route transfers to increase efficiency, convenience, and flexibility. Furthermore, the authors propose three application scenarios that bridge the gap between traditional buses and the new technology. This research is good and contributes to the intelligence and automatic driving capabilities of transportation systems. However, the reviewer has the following comments and suggestions for consideration in order to improve the quality of this research:

Major issues:

1. It is suggested that the authors formulate the problem and present mathematical modelling to better understand the application scenario.
2. Please try to add a pseudocode or algorithm to demonstrate the functionality of the proposed method to improve the paper's quality.
3. The intelligence of the proposed system is not clearly demonstrated.
4. The contributions of the authors are not clearly presented.
5. Without simulation results and justification, it is hard to comprehend the feasibility of the proposed scheme, so it is appreciated if the authors present simulation results.
6. Table 1, Table 2, and Figure 4 have margins that extend beyond the range of the page. The table format should follow the MDPI standards; for example, Table 2 needs to be revised. 
7. The reminder of the paper should start from section 2, please revise it.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors attempted to address all of my comments. I have no further comments.