Casual Carpooling: A Strategy to Support Implementation of Mobility-as-a-Service in a Developing Country

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Interesting paper topic. In the reviewed paper, Authors presented the problem of a casual carpooling in favour of sustainable urban mobility and try to present the strategy in order to implement mobility as a service in a developing country. The implementation of the carpooling system brings many tangible benefits, including benefits for the city, carpooling users, the environment and local communities, as well as for businesses operating in the area. Hence, there is a still need to conduct scientific research in this field as well as to promote this type solutions. In my opinion, paper can be published, after taking into account the following remarks:

• in keywords should be added expressions "road transport", "sustainable mobility",
• lines from 100 to 108, Authors used numbers, i.e.:1. Transport on-demand: to meet a customer’s needs, a MaaS service provider arranges the most suitable transport means, be it public transport, taxi or car rental, or even ride-, car- or bike-sharing; 2. Subscription service: users do not need to buy travel tickets or sign up for separate transport accounts since a MaaS account provides the freedom to choose the mobility the user needs, for an agreed period or pay-as-you-go subscription and; 3. Potential to create new markets: for transport providers, MaaS can offer new sales channels, access to untapped customer demand, simplified user account, and payment management, as well as richer data on travel demand patterns and dynamics. Authors should replace these numbers into bullet-items, because in the paper text, the numbers are usually reserved for sections and subsections,
• in the paper title as well as in the Introduction section Authors wrote about the sustainable urban mobility without explaining the meaning and without presented sustainable urban mobility characteristics. Authors should mention in the Introduction section that there are many elements forming and develop sustainable urban mobility, e.g. like park and ride systems, bike-sharing systems, etc. Authors should refer to these solutions, indicate that they are means used in the pursuit of sustainable transportation and pointing to the latest research works published in MDPI journals, such as in the area of bike-sharing e.g. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198215; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083285; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198205 and in the area of park and ride systems: https://doi.org/10.3390/en13133473; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12062484. One short paragraph in the Introduction section will be enough, 
• as per the requirements of the Sustainability Journal, references to reference should be numbered and placed in square brackets in the paper body, e.g. like [1], [4], [10-12], etc.,
• line 122, we can find ..." According to the author,"... but according to presented names at the paper begining there are 6 Authors of this paper, so should be Authors. English should be checked before publishing,
• from the point of view of the purpose of the article, the subsection "2.4. The act of sharing" is redundant and should be removed,
• Authors wrote that ..."The participants’ selection was done by non-probabilistic sampling"... it concerns the participant's selection in order to make a survey. Could Authors characterize these participants selection in a more detailed way?
• did Authors check the minimal value of sample size in order to make a statistical analysis? This question is in the context of logistic regression analyzes based on not too large sample size, i.e. equal 78 for a group of drivers and equal 204 for non-drivers. In statistics, inference based on a small number of research samples does not allow for drawing true conclusions reflecting the population of respondents,
• Authors used acronyms without explaining their meaning, e.g. AIC. In all paper body, when Authors used acronym for the first time, they should at the same time explain their meaning, e.g. in the brackets,
• Authors make mistakes in the names of the regression models, i.e. in section 5.1. Authors wrote "5.1. Logistic regression model", but in section 6.1, line 338, Authors wrote ..."The linear regression model showed that"... It should be improved,
• lines from 404 to 407, the numbers, i.e. 1. Supporters of casual carpooling for acquaintances; 2. Supporters of solidary casual carpooling for anyone; 3. Supporters of casual carpooling for anyone given some incentives provided; 4. Non-casual carpooling supporters, should be replaced by bullet-items. The same remark is dedicated to the text from 486 to 494,
• the name of the section "7. Concluding remarks" should be replaced into 7. Conclusions.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for the considerations.
We carefully evaluated all of them and adapt them to our paper. The work became much more robust and adequate after the adaptations. Attached is our document with each of your notes answered. You will find in the last version of the paper sent all these changes made (with the change control on). If you have any additional comments or considerations, we are at your disposal.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

The topic of this paper is interesting, and the authors place it reasonably well within the scope of the Sustainability journal. This article presents a new transport mode (i.e., carpooling_ to be incorporated to MaaS concept in developing countries where PT is inefficient I some cases. Although it seems an effective solution but the research design and results are not comprehensive enough to support the proposed conclusions. This article needs major revisions before being suitable for publication as a scientific article. Authors should address the following issues:

• Abstract: ….such as: rides…. should be changed by “ride sharing”.
• Introduction: Some sentences duplicated from abstract which needs paraphrasing e.g., lines 38-39 and so on. You may also talk about parking lot impacts on causal carpooling. For more information, please see: https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083188
  
  
• Literature Review section requires major revisions considering the objective of the study. It is too lengthy and MaaS concept is over-presented. MaaS concept should be shorten and summarized. “Mode choice factors and MaaS usage conditions” and “people attitudes towards carpooling and MaaS” in developing countries should be discussed in-depth. What is influencing factors for students to choose carpooling or to use MaaS in other developing countries?
  
  
• Research Design and Research Context sections should be merged. “Research context” is too short to be a separate section. Line 246, non-probabilistic sampling should be briefly described. How you calculate the sample size? What is the socio-demographic structure of your sample? How many men and women participated? How age, gender, income level of participate affected their carpooling and MaaS usage? The implementation of casual carpooling into MaaS concept should be well-described in the “research design or method” section.
  
  
• Table 2: what is Wald test? Why you did it? What is the acceptable range and criteria for that?
  
  
• Table 6: who are belong to GENERAL?
  
  
• As far as I concerned, general medium- and high-income students can study at private universities due to high tuition fee. How income level is related to their carpooling and MaaS usage or their (not) willingness to do carpooling?
• What do you mean by lines 385 to 398?
• Line 407: what is the deference between casual and non-casual carpooling?
  
  
• Section 6.2: The following concerns needs to be more discussed and clarified during the method and result sections:
• The main research gap identified is to incorporate casual carpooling in the MaaS concept. However, there is no information about how it can be possible.
• For instance, the point-based idea for carpooling drivers seems logical and reasonable but who will provide financial rewards for them? Municipalities, governments, etc.?
• In MaaS concept, there are several competitors e.g., carsharing, bike sharing companies whom are not interested to share their market with others. If governments will provide financial rewards (support) to carpooling drivers, what they would provide to other companies in order to have a fair support system? How casual carpooling will compete with other transportation modes?
• As per MaaS concept, passenger (users) have to select MaaS bundles (several transport modes). For other modes like carsharing and bike sharing, they can easy plan their trips based the availability of the vehicle at the station (using ICT platforms). How a passenger ill sure that the carpooling vehicle will be available at drop-on location at a specific time?
• Line 492-493: is not clear and needs more clarification.
• Figure 5 is better to design horizontally instead of vertical design.
  
  
• Conclusion: As only 307 participants from educational institutions have done the survey, how you generalized the results for developing countries?
  
  
• Future Agenda: it is better to expand the survey in developing countries and with various user groups (not only students) instead of developed countries such as Finland and Sweden.
  
  
• Reference: no 31 and 33 are same. Remove one of them. What is no.45?
  
  
• Acknowledgment: 75% similarity (plagiarism) has been detected for the article by the thesis of the corresponding author (first author). It is better to state in the acknowledgment section that this article is a part of the thesis written by the first author to avoid confusion.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for the considerations.
We carefully evaluated all of them and adapt them to our paper. The work became much more robust and adequate after the adaptations. Attached is our document with each of your notes answered. You will find in the last version of the paper sent all these changes made (with the change control on). If you have any additional comments or considerations, we are at your disposal.

 

Best Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The theme covered by this study is interesting. The paper is structured in a clear manner.

Just a few comments to improve the research performed so far, as follows:

The title does not correctly reflect the paper's contents. On the one hand, from a conceptual point of view, both the starting and the ending points of the proposed research seem to be not strictly related to the MaaS approach. The MaaS strategy appears to be forced within a local framework referring to carpooling-oriented experiences. On the other hand, the main focus is on a very local urban environment (Lavras) within the Brazilian context, and the experimental parts exclusively refer to that. For the two above points, it is suggested to propose a new title.

Moreover, the authors should provide a better description of the selected sample, also justifying its descriptiveness concerning the total population.

Besides, as the proposed case study covers a very peculiar context (Lavras, a small Brazilian town), it would be useful to mention a potential transferability of the basic concepts along with the modeling approach (or criteria) to other urban environments. In so doing so, the readers' interest could be increased.  

Finally, the authors should update the conclusions by suggesting whether (and if so, how) the research rationale could be changed following the recent impacts of the COVID-19 health emergency on both urban mobility and travel behaviors. That's because the pandemic and the lockdown imposed at the national level could likely discourage private cars' use, also reducing the level of acceptance of carpooling in the middle and long-run.

Just a minor remark refers to the acronym P2P: it should be made explicit the first time it is used (see pg. 5)

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for the considerations.
We carefully evaluate all of them and adapt them to our paper. The work became much more robust and adequate after the adaptations. Attached is our document with each of your notes answered. You will find in the last version of the paper sent all these changes made (with the change control on). If you have any additional comments or considerations, we are at your disposal.

Best Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have already addressed most of my comments.

 

 

Author Response

Dear review, 
Thank you very much for your considerations. 
We agreed to add the theory of Esztergár-Kiss in all paper; please, take a look at how it sounds to you.
Make ourselves available.
Best regards

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.