Sustainable Transport in the Danube Region
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper is intended to propose available capacity on the Danube for the environmental-friendly way of transport. Based on the case study, the authors concluded that the available capacity of inland water transport on the Danube could support the transition of traffic performances to sustainable and environmentally friendly means of transport. While the sustainability of transport systems is an increasingly important issue and certainly a worthwhile topic particularly with the rapid growth in transport-related GHG emissions and pollutants across the world, I found the approach here, and the conclusions, to be overly simplistic. As I completed the paper though, the authors simply failed to convince me that significant results or recommendations can be made by a simple method.
The originality and novelty of the paper are not obvious. Because the methodology of regression analysis based on MS Excel with function LINEST is quite simplistic, this makes me and readers difficult to understand the contribution of this paper. Moreover, the authors are recommended to enrich the methods for estimating transport emissions. For example, have the technology improvement and energy intensities been considered in calculating the emissions? It is necessary to clearly and confidently clarify the innovative point of the research framework and methodology proposed in this paper compared to the existing studies and conventional methods. What shortcomings and disadvantages of conventional methods would be resolved by this work? The authors should also illustrate the generality of this methodology and main findings. It is needful to demonstrate whether the research framework in this paper can be a generally accepted way for drawing policy implications.
In addition, masses of tables are used in the paper. It is better to only keep the really necessary tables but put most of them into the supplementary information to avoid redundancy.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1,
thank you for your comments and recommendations. Our reply is presented point to point lower in this text and also in Word file which is enclosed. Authors have edited the content of the paper in accordance with the reviews.
Reference to Review 1:
We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her insight into the subject addressed.
This paper is intended to propose available capacity on the Danube for the environmental-friendly way of transport. Based on the case study, the authors concluded that the available capacity of inland water transport on the Danube could support the transition of traffic performances to sustainable and environmentally friendly means of transport. While the sustainability of transport systems is an increasingly important issue and certainly a worthwhile topic particularly with the rapid growth in transport-related GHG emissions and pollutants across the world, I found the approach here, and the conclusions, to be overly simplistic. As I completed the paper though, the authors simply failed to convince me that significant results or recommendations can be made by a simple method.The originality and novelty of the paper are not obvious. Because the methodology of regression analysis based on MS Excel with function LINEST is quite simplistic, this makes me and readers difficult to understand the contribution of this paper.
Thank you very much for your opinion. We have tried to add the explanation of different misunderstandings in our paper. Our conclusions have been formulated generally without additional findings and recommendations. That could lead to the approach that these conclusions are overly simplistic. We have improved our claims to explain the methods, tools, the main idea and recommendations of our paper based on different points of your review. Presented functions and tools like function LINEST are only a small part of the main idea of our paper. We try to analyze the data and draw empirical conclusions from them, we have a reduced number of observations - only 9. Such a low number of observations is usually associated with a lack of confidence in the estimates. Based on the mentioned research, taking into account the low number of observations, we used the OLS method in the calculations. The main idea has not been oriented only into the mathematical model, but also how to use current methods and current situation to react for climate changes immediately without additional investments independently of the economic situation of individual country. The explanation of these approaches has been added into discussion section, literature review, introduction and also materials and methods section. Authors hope that additional information could explain the originality and novelty of this paper.
Moreover, the authors are recommended to enrich the methods for estimating transport emissions
Thank you very much for your recommendation. Authors admit that these methods are quite important. We have added new chapter to express commonly used method for estimating transport emissions.
For example, have the technology improvement and energy intensities been considered in calculating the emissions? It is necessary to clearly and confidently clarify the innovative point of the research framework and methodology proposed in this paper compared to the existing studies and conventional methods. What shortcomings and disadvantages of conventional methods would be resolved by this work? The authors should also illustrate the generality of this methodology and main findings. It is needful to demonstrate whether the research framework in this paper can be a generally accepted way for drawing policy implications.
Thank you for these important questions that enrich the main contributions of our paper. Authors have expanded the discussion section. We have tried to explain that the main contribution is to promote current possibilities that could be implemented immediately, because if we want to slow down climate changes we will need to do something now. New technologies are quite important, but the implementation of new technologies takes a long time (at least 5 or 10 years) especially in countries like Slovakia that have different problems with implementation of new processes (financial, politician, etc.). We suggest using current state that could contribute to decrease climate changes and the implementation of new technologies could follow up smoothly the use of available capacity in water transport. This could create sustainable transport development which will not be based on financial and economic conditions of different countries but based on decisions to use more environmental friendly ways of transport. This attitude is quite different from current conventional ideas that rely on new technologies but on the other hand current conventional methods and ideas do not take into account current possibilities. This is the main contribution to the generality and policy implications not only in Europe but all around the world.
In addition, masses of tables are used in the paper. It is better to only keep the really necessary tables but put most of them into the supplementary information to avoid redundancy.
Authors have reduced significant number of tables. We have tried to keep really necessary tables.
Kind regards,
Peter Mako
Andrej Dávid
Patrik Böhm
Sorin Savu
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors here you can find my comments:
- Please clearly state what is the aim of your paper, and why did you use the proposed methodology. It is somehow not clear what is the main aim and goal of your paper.
- I suggest using the term Southeast Europe than Balkan countries in line 106. You mentioned that Croatia and Serbia are Balkan countries and Romania and Bulgaria are not which is incorrect.
- For such a review article, I think that the literature review should be much more extended.
- In chapter 3.12. please explain why you have decided to use linear regression?
- In equation 1 you are explaining what is parameter alpha but there is no alpha in equation.
- In Table 15 I don't understand how you expressed R2 in thousands as values of R2 are between 0 and 1?
- In chapter 3.2 I don't understand how have you calculate the emission of CO2. I found it inappropriate in a scientific paper just to state: The calculation of CO2 emissions is based on actual available materials and studies. Please explain the methodology how have you determined CO2 emissions.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
thank you for your comments and recommendation. Our point-by-point response is lower in this text and also in enclosed Word file. Authors have edited the content of the paper in accordance with the reviews.
Reference to Review 2:
We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her insight into the subject addressed.
Please clearly state what is the aim of your paper, and why did you use the proposed methodology. It is somehow not clear what is the main aim and goal of your paper.
- Authors have tried to expand the introduction and the discussion section to clearly explain the main aim of our paper.
I suggest using the term Southeast Europe than Balkan countries in line 106. You mentioned that Croatia and Serbia are Balkan countries and Romania and Bulgaria are not which is incorrect.
- We have improved the name of this region in suggested way.
For such a review article, I think that the literature review should be much more extended.
- Authors have extended the literature review by articles, contributions and authors that deal with the topic of the paper.
In chapter 3.12. please explain why you have decided to use linear regression?
- The number of chapter has changed. The explanation was added into chapter 3.13. The explanation has been added into main text. The main reason for using linear regression was the samle of statistics data.
In equation 1 you are explaining what is parameter alpha but there is no alpha in equation.
- This was a mistake from our side. This parameter was mentioned in the text about, so we moved the description of this parameter into the main text for better explanation of this parameter.
In Table 15 I don't understand how you expressed R2 in thousands as values of R2 are between 0 and 1?
- Thank you for your warning. It was our mistakes. Values of R2 are now between 0 and 1 – it was only a writing mistake. Attention – the number of table has changed – now it is the Table 3.
In chapter 3.2 I don't understand how have you calculate the emission of CO2. I found it inappropriate in a scientific paper just to state: The calculation of CO2 emissions is based on actual available materials and studies. Please explain the methodology how have you determined CO2 emissions.
- Authors have added new parts of the main text into the case study section, where we have tried to explain the methodology of calculation. In addition new chapter in the section “Materials and methods” has been added to explain more methods commonly used for estimating and calculation of emissions in transport.
Kind regards,
Peter Mako
Andrej Dávid
Patrik Böhm
Sorin Savu
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have positively and carefully addressed all of the comments, and from my perspective, the revised draft can now be accepted for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear editors and authors,
authors have responded to my comments and changed the paper. I think that paper is now acceptable for publication.
