Evaluation of Land-Use Layout of the Rail Station Area Based on the Difference in Noise Sensitivity to Rail Transit, Taking a Suburb of Tokyo as an Example

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors estimated and calculated the negative impacts of rail noise on land parcels of different uses, trying to explore an optimal layout that can minimize the negative noise impacts.  The research design is good, and the findings are solid.  The paper can be improved in the following aspects.

• In the abstract, the “limitations of such methods” (lines 9-10) should be specified before proposing the potential solution(s).
• Tokyo is a quite special case as not many countries or cities across the world have such a highly-dense development along the railway. The authors should specify how the findings and implications can be extended to other cities of similar types. Also, the selection of the case study of Futako Tamagawa Station is not well justified.
• In line 122, the authors claimed that “the impact of two factors on land price, namely accessibility to the rail transit station and the environmental impact, decreased with the increase in the distance.” However, there are several many other dominant factors influencing the property value, such as the supply of job opportunities and employment (suggest reading, for instance, doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.26899 and doi:10.1177/2399808319864972). It is fine for the authors to focus on a few relevant factors, but an overview should first be provided based on the literature, followed by a justification of the choice of variables in the TOD area.
• In line 194, should the price unit be Yen or Yuan?
• The policy implications can be further improved to incorporate the specific findings in this research. For instance, to what extent the residential land value can be recovered by promoting commercial development in the closer parcels of a TOD. 
• The authors proposed the policy suggestions merely rely on the noise aspect - what about its potential synergies and tradeoffs with the other impacts (e.g., social and economic)?  More reflections from the authors are expected.
• The manuscript should be proofread with citations all corrected. For instance, in line 110, the reference is missing.

 

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers:

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, and we also appreciate reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Evaluation of the Land Use Layout in the Rail Station Area Based on the Difference in Noise Sensitivity to Rail Transit, Taking a Suburb of Tokyo as an Example” (Manuscript Number:sustainability-1717822). The following are the specific changes we have made in response to your comments.

① In the abstract, the “limitations of such methods” (lines 9-10) should be specified before proposing the potential solution(s).

Response:

I added the following to the abstract: 

“However relevant studies have pointed out the limitations of such methods from the perspective of enforceability and social justice. Specifically, extensive monitoring of noise is difficult, and the cost of noise reduction is mostly borne by the surrounding residents. ”

 

② Tokyo is a quite special case as not many countries or cities across the world have such a highly-dense development along the railway. The authors should specify how the findings and implications can be extended to other cities of similar types. Also, the selection of the case study of Futako Tamagawa Station is not well justified.

Response:

The particularity of Tokyo's urban rail development stems from its historical development context, and an important point is its high-density population that has existed since ancient times. But this phenomenon is not unique. We have added a description of the implications of the study to the introduction and conclusion of the article, pointing to the development of densely populated megacities in Asia. After the 21st century, the number and density of rail transit in these cities have exploded, and it is the original intention of our research to pay attention to the various intentions brought about by rail transit in these cities.

About Futako Tamagawa Station, We have added the following to illustrate:

In the redevelopment process of Tokyo, Japan, the strategy of integrating the station city was adopted, and many stations with rich surrounding functions and formats were formed, among which residential, commercial and office are the main components. This article uses Futako-Tamagawa Station in the suburbs of Tokyo as a case study. By changing the land layout plan and keeping other characteristic variables unchanged, different plans can be generated, and the changes of land prices in different plans due to changes in noise environment and site accessibility are estimated and compared.

 The main reasons for choosing Futako Tamagawa Station as an example are: 1. Futako Tamagawa Station in Setagaya City, Tokyo, Japan is the main station of the electric Tokyo Den-en-toshi Line and Oimachi Line. Heavy traffic and faster running speed mean it There is a large noise impact (Table 2); 2. Most of the site redevelopment cases in Japan are dominated by commercial and office functions. In contrast, the residential function in this case has a high proportion, and the site is within 800m around the site. An independent plot composed of three high-rise residential buildings (Table 13) is formed in the plot, which provides a valuable sample for research; 3. The track line turns near the plot, which makes the received noise range of the plot larger, which also means Changes in spatial layout may have a more pronounced impact on plots (Figure 10).

 

Figure 10. General plan of the urban redevelopment of Futako Tamagawa Station.

③ In line 122, the authors claimed that “the impact of two factors on land price, namely accessibility to the rail transit station and the environmental impact, decreased with the increase in the distance.” However, there are several many other dominant factors influencing the property value, such as the supply of job opportunities and employment . It is fine for the authors to focus on a few relevant factors, but an overview should first be provided based on the literature, followed by a justification of the choice of variables in the TOD area.

Response:

Screening of impact factors is an important task of this kind of research. We have appropriately added some reviews on influencing factors.

In fact, we adopted such a method in our research, that is: first, in addition to the necessary site accessibility and noise data, other influencing factors were collected as much as possible; then, statistical tools were used to screen these factors to Make sure they fit the land price well.

Admittedly, compared to the many factors that affect land prices, the data we can collect is not much, but the results show that they are sufficient.

④ In line 194, should the price unit be Yen or Yuan?

Response:

Yen.

Thanks for pointing out the error here. This is a translation error, because , the symbols and characters for Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan are the same in Chinese. I'm sorry for my carelessness.

⑤ The policy implications can be further improved to incorporate the specific findings in this research. For instance, to what extent the residential land value can be recovered by promoting commercial development in the closer parcels of a TOD. The authors proposed the policy suggestions merely rely on the noise aspect - what about its potential synergies and tradeoffs with the other impacts (e.g., social and economic)?  More reflections from the authors are expected.

Response:

The overall increase in land prices brought about by commercial placement has been mentioned in this article.

This study starts with the existing noise control methods and policies, and studies one of them—optimizing the noise environment by adjusting the layout of land use. The research results provide support for the feasibility of this method and help its promotion. But for a more in-depth discussion of policy implications, we prefer to be more cautious and not do so until the implications of other relevant factors are considered.

⑥ The manuscript should be proofread with citations all corrected. For instance, in line 110, the reference is missing.

Response:

All references and other formatting errors have been adjusted, which appear to be related to the typesetting provided by the journal, and we have contacted the editor to report this issue.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I think the article content should be connected to the discussion on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)  (https://sdgs.un.org/). 
In particular, my suggestion is to add about ten lines in the introduction that explain the connection of the problem addressed with SDGs, specifying what among SDGs are interested in.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, and we also appreciate reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Evaluation of the Land Use Layout in the Rail Station Area Based on the Difference in Noise Sensitivity to Rail Transit, Taking a Suburb of Tokyo as an Example” (Manuscript Number:sustainability-1717822). The following are the specific changes we have made in response to your comments.
 

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs provides 17 goals related to the Sustainable Development Goals. These goals are grand but slightly abstract, as any of them cover a lot.

In response to your suggestion, we have made the following changes:

In the first paragraph of the article, we briefly mentioned the background of the densely populated and land-constrained Asian metropolises: “In the 21st century, urban rail transit has been widely promoted as a green transportation method in many cities, especially in large cities with dense population and limited land resources in Asian countries such as Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Bangkok, Thailand, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.”

In this way, we believe the significance of this research becomes apparent, which are reducing urban environmental pollution and improving economic sustainability. Just like written in this: “By evaluating multiple land use layout schemes for a specific parcel around a rail station, we aimed to select a scheme capable of achieving rail transit with a minimal negative impact that would not require incurring higher costs of land for relieving the noise impact.”(We added "of land" to make it more targeted)

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper clarifies the effects of noise by analyzing the hedonic land prices of residential and commercial land along railway lines, and presents the direction of land use planning. Research results may have some predominance, but there are too many problems in contents such as figures and links to references. In particular, due to the lack of Fig. 13, it is not possible to judge the validity of the analysis for multiple schemes of land layout. In addition, discussion on the significance and generality of research results is insufficient, because the railway lines in Tokyo are particular areas even in Japan.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, and we also appreciate reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Evaluation of the Land Use Layout in the Rail Station Area Based on the Difference in Noise Sensitivity to Rail Transit, Taking a Suburb of Tokyo as an Example” (Manuscript Number:sustainability-1717822). The following are the specific changes we have made in response to your comments.

①Research results may have some predominance, but there are too many problems in contents such as figures and links to references. In particular, due to the lack of Fig. 13, it is not possible to judge the validity of the analysis for multiple schemes of land layout.

Response:

I have reported to the editor the disappearance of pictures in the previous version of the pdf file. And all references and other formatting errors have been adjusted, which appear to be related to the typesetting provided by the journal, and we have contacted the editor to report this issue too.

②In addition, discussion on the significance and generality of research results is insufficient, because the railway lines in Tokyo are particular areas even in Japan.

Response:

The particularity of Tokyo's urban rail development stems from its historical development context, and an important point is its high-density population that has existed since ancient times. But this phenomenon is not unique. We have added a description of the implications of the study to the introduction and conclusion of the article, pointing to the development of densely populated megacities in Asia. After the 21st century, the number and density of rail transit in these cities have exploded, and it is the original intention of our research to pay attention to the various intentions brought about by rail transit in these cities.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has been sufficiently improved to warrant publication in Sustainability.

Reviewer 3 Report

The disappearance of pictures and links to references have been improved, and the validity of the analysis conditions and results was clearly presented. Descriptions of the significance and generality of the research results were also added. Therefore, this article is considered to be worth publishing in sustainability.