Key Challenges in the Status Analysis for the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan in Podgorica, Montenegro

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The presented paper includes numerous editorial mistakes (e.g. lack of mentioning some of Figures in the text, duplication of data from tables on graphs, too small font on chart legends).
The paper presents process of collecting data but the method used to decide how to do it is poorly described (it should be cheap and easy to repeat, but why this way and not the other..? I did not got this explanation). There is a lack of references to examples of other Status Analysis of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans.
The data are presented and described as they are, with no scientific interpretation. However the drawn conclusions do not refer to the data (some of them could be stated even with no data collected).
The author put a lot of effort in presented material but I am afraid it has too low scientific approach for this kind of journal.

 

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

This work deals with Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs), by proposing several approaches and key findings to build the status analysis referred to the SUMP of Montenegro (Podgorica).

 

The research topic could be interesting, but some revisions are needed.

 

After giving it a thorough reading, I have some comments and I hope to provide both useful and helpful observations in order to enable the authors to improve their work. Please, see specific comments.

 

Abstract: Why do the authors define “innovative” approaches if they present traffic count and survey results? Add some examples about the “adequate measures” proposed in the SUMP.

 

In section 1 “Introduction”: In general, I really appreciated the state of art, but some literature references should be updated. Add the description of the main aim of the paper before introducing the case of Montenegro (line 111), and it is also necessary to highlight the innovative aspects of the research compared to the current literature. It is important to make references about the new concept of sustainability and the human-centered approach in urban transport planning. Moreover, it is necessary to pay attention to the different phases for the drafting of a SUMP, to emphasize the validity of the research.

• Torrisi, V., Garau, C., Ignaccolo, M., & Inturri, G. (2020, July). “Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans”: Key Concepts and a Critical Revision on SUMPs Guidelines. In International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (pp. 613-628). Springer, Cham.

 

In section 2 “Materials and Methods”:  This section presents the goal and the methodology of the research, describing the steps forward of the presented research.

• Line 140: Reference [54]. There are new updated guidelines: “European Commission (2019). 2nd edition of Guidelines for developing and implementing a sustainable urban mobility plan”.
• Figure 1: Since in lines 197-200 the authors referred to the drafting period of the SUMP, it could be better to represent the Process of Podgorica SUMP in the form of a Gantt. Moreover, they can refer to the phases provided by the European Guidelines.
• Table 1: What is the incidence of each interviewed group compared to the entire single group? Add a further column.

 

In section 3 “Analysis of the data obtained” can be simply renamed “Results”.

• From paragraphs 3.1 to 3.6 the results seem not to relate to the survey. Integrate the presence of these data in the methodological description, by highlighting their relevance in the SUMP process.
• Figures 2 and 3, they do not add any additional information respect to Table 4. They can be eliminated in the face of interrelated analyzes between the mentioned variables.
• Referring to the results of paragraphs 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9, it could be advisable to add a figure or explanation about the location of schools and the criticalities associated to the trips.
• Lines 344-351: Specify how sections have been selected, not only with regards to vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
• Table 8: How these data are statistically relevant? Just a comment must be provided considering the traffic counts have been detected only during the day of 12^th June, without the comparison with other days (both weekdays and weekends).
• Figures 11 and 12: they must be introduced after the explanation in the text (lines 393-401).
• Results from “focus groups” (cited in table 1) are missing.
• In general, all figures in this section are not very legible. More elaboration would have been appreciated by indicating in two different tables the survey questions and the statistical results of the analyzes. In addition, a statistical analyzes taking into account multiple correlations between variables would have given more scientific value to the work.

 

Section 4 “Advantages and disadvantages of the approach” and section 5 “Key challenges” could be merged into a single section “Discussion”:

• Identify also other works than the citations [61-64] referring to the same geographic area and authors.
• Despite reporting a simple summary of the results as “key challenges”, insert how these results derived by the presented analysis have been used for the drafting of the plan, since it has been concluded. In this regard, lines 547-559: what actions and strategies does the plan broadly propose to solve these criticalities? In light of this, there is no description about practical implications deriving from the results, it is necessary to highlight the interesting and innovative methodological aspects of the work (currently not emerging).

 

Section 5 “Conclusions”:

• References 56-74 could be updated.
• Further research suggestions would be appreciated.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

• Introduciton can be improved with some hoigh quality maps or ilustraions to show the location of Podgorica in the country, the shape, the urban districts, the presence of geographic landmarks, etc. Also some data about the city (population, industrial importance in the city and country, last decades growth, and so on...)
• Section 2.1 could be rewritten and improved: current version seems to be a descritpion of goals of the SUMP intial phase, and not the objectives of the research (as should be). The section must reflect clearly the goals of the paper.
• Section 2.2: the reasons of activities selection (Desk research, etc) can be also explained and referenced if posible. Current version of text do not explanin anything, so they seems to be arbitrarily selected...
• Some tables and figures are not referenced in current manuscript. Please check all of them all referenced in the text.
• Table 1: can be included the % of each group and/or total of survey participation?
• Authors should think how increase the manuscript level, as in the current version looks like a simple technical document (instead of a research paper). A initial point (as a starting point suggestion) can be a section comparing collected data to other cities of the country and european averages, which would be valuable to understand city singularities, and possible similarities or differences (trying to explain them).
• If necessary, authors can reduce some of the descriptive text that repeats sometimes data from tables, but devote more space for analysis, more research (with results) and original conclusions.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper. It offers a detailed presentation of the process of status analysis as part of the preparation of a first SUMP for Podgorica, Montenegro. The data presented are diverse and insightful. However, the paper needs to be substantially reworked in order to really make clear its contribution to the academic literature. At present, the case study, while interesting in its own right, is not sufficiently tied into existing academic debates, and the contribution of the analysis is not made sufficiently clear. I would reduce the part of the introduction which discusses sustainable mobility challenges more broadly, and focus specifically on SUMPs, prior research on them, the contributions and limitations of SUMPs, and then the way the present paper adds to the literature. The main body of the paper then needs to be tied specifically to these contributions, as at the moment, it is largely descriptive. For each set of data presented, it would be helpful to see more interpretation, linking to existing literature, and discussion of implications (for the SUMP process in Podgorica, and for sustainable urban mobility planning as a whole). You could consider cutting the number of tables and charts in favour of more detailed discussion of the significance of the findings for scholarship and practice. 

A couple of very minor notes- 

line 68: "However, many local authorities still mainly focus on passenger transport in strategic planning, treating freight transport as an area for which the private sector is responsible." - This implies that the authors will address this gap in the paper, but this is not really the case. Consider revising or omitting.

 Table 3: No need to present these data to second decimal point

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been improved. A lot of work has been done.

Still, there are some editorial mistakes (some tables (1,3) and figure (2) not mentioned in the text), the presentation of the methodology is not leveled (some parts (surveys) are described step by step, some are just mentioned -BYPAD).
Conclusions are clear and well stated.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

I thank the authors for considering my revisions in order to improve the paper. In the light of a careful reading of the new version of the paper and a detailed comparison with the previous version, further comments are provided.

Abstract:

Compared to the previous version, the description in the abstract is more consistent with the content of the paper. However, it should be summarized as it exceeds the expected length.

Table 1:

The subdivision of the sample as a percentage of the different categories interviewed is not required, but the number of the sample compared to the total (for example the number of interviewed citizens of Podgorica compared to the total number of citizens of this city, etc ...)

Section 3:

The authors declared in the reviewer's answer: "The results of the focus group interviews largely coincide with the results of the online survey, so they are not particularly presented in the paper". In this regard, this sentence should also be included in the paper.

Section 5:

The authors declare that they have updated the references [56-74], however, observing the previous and the current version of the paper, no changes are noticed.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

My thanks to the authors for their revisions of the paper. I am quite torn about this paper; on one hand, it presents an in-depth discussion of a city which is rarely discussed in the literature, providing many interesting insights. On the other hand, the paper remains largely descriptive, with few links to previous policy and scholarly analyses. However, overall I believe that the more policy-oriented readership of the journal will benefit from having access to the detailed description of the SUMP process described in the paper. This is particularly the case for those readers based outside of Western Europe who may have to conduct this process with limited means and relatively less experience. I recommend thorough editing and proofreading for English vocabulary and grammar. 

Author Response

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