Port Cooperation and Bundling: A Way to Reduce the External Costs of Hinterland Transport
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The abstract is clear, although it should avoid abbreviations (VoT).
It is an interesting empirical study. My two mains suggestions: the cooperation’s drawback should be discussed as well as the limitations of the discrete choice model.
Line 114 PA= probability to choose A should be stated; alpha and the set of i should be given. In the following §, put A, B and i as index of OC and HC.
Line 118, for all gateway ports (i),=> for all gateway ports i (i in italic)
Line 119, following analysis,. => following analysis.
Line 121, for every port (i) => for each port i (i in italic)
The presentation of the tables should be improved. A copy and paste of the results from a spreadsheet (or from another paper) does not seem appropriate. Besides, Table 2-3: column’s header should be arranged alphabetically or chronologically. Table 5: do not rotate headers. Table 6, cited papers should be in the reference section. Table 7: do not rotate headers. Table 8 right alignment for numbers
Figure 3 is not that clear, I guess the authors cannot improve it.
Minor :
Line 93: Equation 1 (based on (Blauwens, Van de Voorde, en De Baere 2016)) => Equation 1 (based on Blauwens, Van de Voorde, en De Baere 2016)
Line 108-09: value of time ; add (VoT) and then use VoT
Line 258: van Hassel => Van Hassel
Line 385: might be a good organisation to organise (rewrite)
Author Response
The abstract is clear, although it should avoid abbreviations (VoT).
*** done
It is an interesting empirical study. My two mains suggestions: the cooperation’s drawback should be discussed
*** added before the conclusions but since the word limit is already slightly exceeded the addition is only a few lines.
as well as the limitations of the discrete choice model.
*** added a paragraph on the IIA assumption
Line 114 PA= probability to choose A should be stated;
*** added
alpha and the set of i should be given. In the following §, put A, B and i as index of OC and HC.
*** done
Line 118, for all gateway ports (i),=> for all gateway ports i (i in italic)
*** done
Line 119, following analysis,. => following analysis.
*** done
Line 121, for every port (i) => for each port i (i in italic)
*** done
The presentation of the tables should be improved. A copy and paste of the results from a spreadsheet (or from another paper) does not seem appropriate.
*** in as far as possible
Besides, Table 2-3: column’s header should be arranged alphabetically or chronologically.
*** done (chronologically)
Table 5: do not rotate headers.
*** modified
Table 6, cited papers should be in the reference section.
*** This we cannot do because it would really explode the refernce section, sorry.
Table 7: do not rotate headers.
*** modified
Table 8 right alignment for numbers
*** done
Figure 3 is not that clear, I guess the authors cannot improve it.
*** indeed, we could drop it but we think it is an interesting graph that deserves more attention
Minor :
Line 93: Equation 1 (based on (Blauwens, Van de Voorde, en De Baere 2016)) => Equation 1 (based on Blauwens, Van de Voorde, en De Baere 2016)
*** With the ACS reference style it became a number
Line 108-09: value of time ; add (VoT) and then use VoT
*** Done, and now consistently through the article
Line 258: van Hassel => Van Hassel
*** We did the opposite, we changed all Van Hassel to van Hassel, at least the paper is now consistent. He is Dutch and the Dutch write their van with a small v. I hope you approve.
Line 385: might be a good organisation to organise (rewrite)
*** Modified, was indeed a silly sentence.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is very interesting.
I wuold like to suggest to authors to discuss more in depth the policy implications that emerge from the results of their research.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
The suggestion of discussing policy implications is very valid. We are running currently a seperate research on that topic that maybe next year might result in an article. As such it would take more room than what is availble in the current article to give the topic its full due. We will stress the imporance of this topic in the paragraph concerning further research. We hope this will a sufficeint respons to your remark.
