Indicators for Sustainable Demand Risk Allocation in Transport Infrastructure Projects

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 Sustainability Indicators Demand Risk Allocation in Traffic Infrastructure Delivery

 

Thank you for the opportunity to revise the paper titled: “Sustainability Indicators Demand Risk Allocation in Traffic Infrastructure Delivery”

 

In this paper the author(s) study risk allocation and the “level of control” an operator (public or private) in the traffic infrastructure delivery. They propose two composite indicators and find several insightful findings.

 

First of all I would like to congratulate the author(s) for an interesting article. The paper addresses a clearly important topic and is well written. As feedback for the author(s), I have some suggestions:

 

• First, I would recommend the authors to split the current introduction into two separate sections, one Introduction explaining the research context and gap they try to fill (and perhaps even a brief summary of what are the findings and which contributions these findings provide to the literature and managers), and then another section called Literature Review and which they review the papers previously published in the field.

 

• I would recommend naming the nine risks identified by Grimsey and Lewis, at least as a footnote.

 

• I think the conclusions section should be much more developed. First, how do your findings align (or are opposite) with previous articles in the field? What are the contributions to the literature versus the contributions to managers?

 

• Similarly, I think you should develop much more the future areas for research, and reflect on the possible limitations of your work.

 

• As a minor thing, I would suggest replacing the expression “value lessons were learnt” with a more academic expression referring to the findings of the research.

 

I hope the author(s) find my comments useful and constructive and I wish them luck with their paper.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper "Sustainability indicators demand risk allocation in traffic infrastructure delivery" proposes two indicators to assess demand risk allocation. The paper is of interest, but should be improved before being published.

• Title could be improved
• Affiliations 1 and 3 are the same
• Define PPP in the abstract
• Abstract is too long. Please, read the instructions for authors: "The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used. 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions."
• Introduction is OK, but maybe newer references could be used
• The paper should be properly linked with sustainability topics.
• Table 2 could be provided as supplementary material, instead of in the main text
• Methodology should be better explained. Specially how values are assigned for each indicator
• LOC 1 to LOC4 equations should use the proper equation format and citation
• LOC 1 to LOC 4 should be better explained
• LOC 1 to LOC 4 , it is not clear if variables are I, 1, l ... Please, use a different nomenclature, so it is clearer
• LOC1: Number 6 in both numerator and denominator is redundant
• Figure caption should follow journal format
• Figure 1 quality is a bit blurry
• Figure 2 should be improved, so results can be better analyzed and understood.
• Discussion and conclusions are too short. A more in-depth analysis based on the paper results should be provided to show the value and importance of the proposed indicators.
• Discussion and conclusions should be based on the results shown in section 3

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No further comments for the authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have properly replied to all my comments. Thank you.

My recommendation is Accept in present form.