Passenger Flow Prediction Based on Land Use around Metro Stations: A Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this article, autors develop mathematical and neural network modeling methods to predict metro passenger flow based on the land uses around the metro stations, along with considering the spatial correlation of metro stations within the metro line and the temporal correlation of time series in passenger flow prediction. But, I will mention some suggestions to be corrected and improve the paper:
-Authors misuse acronyms, the correct way to write them is with the first capital letter to represent the acronyms for example "Artificial Neural Network (ANN)" and not "artificial neural network (ANN)". All acronyms used in this article should be corrected.
-Line 24, authors must write in which country the data is.
-Line 28, the acronym "(LSTM)" must go after "Long Short-Term Memory".
-Figure 2 is too small to observe the Subfigures, especially w.
-The Transaction time of Table 2 in which unit is it?
-Figure 4, the letters are very small and the graph is not distinguished at that size.
-What is the meaning of the coefficients used in Table 3?
-What type of regression are the authors using for prediction?
-Is it only necessary with 100 times for training?
-Figure 10, they are too small, nothing can be seen and the axes of the abscissa and ordinate do not have any unity.
-The graphics must be demonstrative on their own, so if the authors place the legend "True", for the reader it has no meaning, for this reason the authors must write legends that identify what they want to demonstrate.
-Authors must place graphs of the prediction results, thus facilitating the understanding of the solution to the problem and, being more attractive to the reader.
-The mathematical method together with the modeling of neural networks to predict the flow of passengers, can it be used in other scenarios in other cities? What data would be needed to have good results in other scenarios?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Manuscript ID: sustainability-895267
Title:“Passenger Flow Prediction Based on Land Use around Metro Stations: A Case Study”
We wish to express our very deep appreciation, and the appreciation of all of us, to your great efforts and suggestions for our manuscript. They are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding to our researches.
The point-to-point response to your comments and the responses can be found in the attachment. The modification marked in red in revised version.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Thank you for your time and patience. I look forward to receiving your letter.
Once again, we would like to thank you for the constructive comments and suggestions. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. We are looking forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
I appreciate the opportunity to review your article.
The document "Passenger Flow Prediction Based on Land Use around Metro Stations: A Case Study", presents an interesting research on a model for predicting passenger flow with respect to a series of parameters.
The research they propose is interesting in its approach and in the proposed statistical development.
I would like to tell you about some aspects that I think would improve the document shown.
- One of the aspects that I believe should be extended a little is the section on literature. The great majority of the authors that they cite are of the same nationality, and this does not suppose any problem since in the existing literature China has great researchers and very relevant works. I think that they should include other works made by experts in transport modelling (even if it is of other types of transport, since many methods are similar) and defend with more emphasis why they use this methodology (they should not be afraid to defend their work)
- They should expand a little on other studies carried out for the same purpose, since globally, urban passenger transport is an important issue in large cities. As a reference you can look at the works of Ortuzar and Willumsen, if you think it is appropriate
- The value of the land should be included as a comment in the introduction or at least as a limitation of its study. Even if we find similar land uses, these typologies change a lot depending on the price per square meter of the land. The value of the land may affect both the purchasing power of the residents in that area, and the buildability it maintains. Although they have commented that they have only used the surface area, I believe that population density is a very important aspect in predicting the use of public transport (metro in this case). The reader does not know if in the 22 metro stations they describe within line 2, the buildability (m3/m2) is similar in all residential areas. This is something they should comment on.
- I advise you to improve the text of the legend in figure 2 next to the coloured lines (use more space if necessary, it is an important figure)
- They should specify if the IC card is the only form of access to the metro, so that the registration of the IC card is more valid. The reader does not know if there are other ways to access the transport
- Between lines 176 and 179, they have put that the two variables are explanatory, I believe that the land is the independent one, and the flow of passengers the dependent one.
- Is the legend in figure 4 complete? Are the rush hours of days 10 to 13 missing?
- I also suggest, if you think it's appropriate, to divide figure 4 into two figures. For example the first week and the second week, so there would be less accumulation of lines. But I leave this to the authors' choice.
- The statistical development of point 3 is very complete, and well structured. It is to be welcomed!
- I think you should give more strength to your conclusions, it is a very important part of your work and I think it should not be a summary of the above, but should strengthen the findings found as well as the limitations of the study.
Greetings
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Manuscript ID: sustainability-895267
Title:“Passenger Flow Prediction Based on Land Use around Metro Stations: A Case Study”
We wish to express our very deep appreciation, and the appreciation of all of us, to your great efforts and suggestions for our manuscript. They are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding to our researches.
The point-to-point response to your comments and the responses can be found in the attachment. The modification marked in red in revised version.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Thank you for your time and patience. I look forward to receiving your letter.
Once again, we would like to thank you for the constructive comments and suggestions. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. We are looking forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a research that predicts metro passenger flow based on land use around metro station with machine learning approach. The methodology is innovative, and paper structure is clear. There are not major issues with the metholdology and purposes. The following comments need to be addressed to ensure publication.
- Please expand the discussion on Qingdao in P3 L120 – how its 'vivid characteristics' make it worth studying.
- Figure 1 and 2 need to be re-produced. Some elements are hard to see like land use legend in Figure 2
- Please expand the conclusion – some are not new. For example, page 17 '….there is a strong relationship between the metro passenger flow and the land uses around the station….' This has been concluded in many previous research.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Manuscript ID: sustainability-895267
Title:“Passenger Flow Prediction Based on Land Use around Metro Stations: A Case Study”
We wish to express our very deep appreciation, and the appreciation of all of us, to your great efforts and suggestions for our manuscript. They are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding to our researches.
The point-to-point response to your comments and the responses can be found in the attachment. The modification marked in red in revised version.
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Thank you for your time and patience. I look forward to receiving your letter.
Once again, we would like to thank you for the constructive comments and suggestions. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. We are looking forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks to the authors for performing the suggested changes and improving the scientific article.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you again and your comments greatly improve our paper in many ways.
Best Regards,
Ciyun Lin
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
The document "Passenger Flow Prediction Based on Land Use around Metro Stations: A Case Study" has been reviewed in full compliance with my suggestions. I appreciate the effort made in this regard. The article is in my opinion eligible for publication in MDPI, Sustainability.
I would only comment on one aesthetic aspect. In table 1, please include the same number of decimal places in all numbers. That is, 0.2 should be 0.20; 0 should be 0.00; 0.1 should be 0.10, and so on.
Sincerely,
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Thank you again for your warm work earnestly. your great comments and suggestions are valuable and very helpful for improving our paper in many ways.
Comment: In table 1, please include the same number of decimal places in all numbers. That is, 0.2 should be 0.20; 0 should be 0.00; 0.1 should be 0.10, and so on.
Response:
First of all, thanks for your further comments and suggestions. We believe these constructive comments and suggestions will continuously improve our paper quality. We revised Table 1 to make all numbers with the same number of the decimal in the revision version.
Best Regards,
Ciyun Lin
