An Adaptive Traffic-Calming Measure and Effectiveness Evaluation in a Large Urban Complex of Shanghai, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please consider my suggestions included in the enclosed document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thanks for the positive comments and suggestions for further improvement. Please see the attachment for respones.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

According to the authors, the paper introduces a novel measure for traffic calming and evaluates its effectiveness in a large urban complex (Jinding) in Shanghai, China. Although the work presented in the paper is interesting, I have some major concerns regarding its publication in the current form. More specifically:

The paper seems to lack a solid, clearly formulated research question. The authors should explicitly describe the scope of the paper.

The remainder of the paper at the end of the introduction section is missing.

There is no Methodological Approach section.

The literature in the Introductory section should be further enhanced.

Even though traffic calming is a key aspect both in the title of the paper and the Introduction, the proposed measure seems to be more of a traffic management solution rather traffic calming one, as it increases driving speed.

In Line 95, “Thu” should be changed to Thus.

In Line 134, “non-moto” should be changed to non-motor.

Figure 2 should be placed near its first mention in the text and, in every case, in the same section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is relevant due to the increase in traffic flows and the problems they cause. However, similar studies should be analyzed more and the literature review and literature list should be expanded.

Author Response

Thanks for the valuable comment. We have analyzed similar studies in Introduction and expanded the literature review and literature list in the revised manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised manuscript is clearly improved and the authors have responded to most of the reviewer concerns.

However, the authors still do not properly outline (or justify the absence of) the:

-research question,

-the hypothesis being tested

The second section should be 2. Materials and methods and not 2. Methodology.  SUMO platform should be described in section 2. Materials and methods, and not in 3. Results section. 

The Results section is not very comprehensive, I suggest enriching  it with relevant information related to testing DQN model on the road network of the Jinding area.

The Discussion section (discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in the perspective of previous studies), which may be combined with Results section is missing.

Author Response

Thanks for the positive comments and suggestions for further improvement. Please see the responses in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the authors' hard work in addressing my comments. The revised version of the manuscript is much improved. Although, in my opinion, this paper comprises more of a case-specific research study, I believe that it could be published in Sustainability Journal as is.

Author Response

Thanks for the positive comments. We have further improved the manuscript to make it more readable and comprehensive.