Path Optimization of Low-Carbon Container Multimodal Transport under Uncertain Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for the opportunity to review this interesting study about low-carbon path optimization in multimodal transport network. Below are some issues and/or suggestions for improvement.

 

1.     Page 2: This statement is very confusing “As shown in Figure 1, few scholars have considered low-carbon containers…” since Figure 1 doesn’t seem have anything to do with “few scholars have considered low-carbon containers…”. Figure 1 is just “Carbon trading price chart”.

 

2.     Please present Figure 2 with color or use different lines for railway and highway. Currently, it’s very difficult to differentiate the solid lines of railway from those of highway.

 

3.     Page 12 under Table 2, the first line: Please correct the error “Error! Reference source not found”.

 

4.     The conclusion section needs to be expanded. Please take it as a great opportunity to highlight your research importance, summarize major research findings, and discuss limitations and possible future research directions. 

 

5.     The numerical experiment of this manuscript is simply based on a toy network. It’s unknown that how the proposed models work on a real-world network. The authors need to at least mention this research limitation and/or for future research.

 

6.     The authors manually set many parameters’ values without much justification. It will be beneficial to experiment how changing some values of different parameters could affect the simulation results. The authors need to at least mention this research limitation and/or for future research. 

 

7.     Last but not least, as a suggestion for possible future research direction, it will be very interesting to see how partial node failure could impact simulation results, especially considering that partial node failures are very common in daily operation of real-world transportation networks. For example, during COVID-19, many ports around the world experienced significant delays and made it very difficult or impossible to switch transport mode at these nodes (i.e., partial node failure). Two good papers below for your reference regarding partial node failure, with the first one published in the same journal Sustainability: 
(1) Partial Node Failure in Shortest Path Network Problems. Sustainability.
(2) Assessing network vulnerability of heavy rail systems with the impact of partial node failures. Transportation.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors  

The below recommendations can help to identify weak places which can be improved.

1. It is recommended to correct the abstract to increase the visibility of the paper. Pay attention that it is possible to use up to 200 words. More recommendations, you will find in the template file and instructions for authors.

2. Keywords - there is also potential for correction, some examples: stochastic, gravitational search operator (in place of FWAGS), etc.

3. "In recent years, with the continuous deterioration..." - for verification, generally in the last decade or more.

4. Figure 1 - it is recommended to write the names of axes and units (analogical recommendation for all figures). The name of the figure is too long - it is recommended to reduce the name and present the description in the main text.

5. "It is of great significance to optimize China's transportation structure and establish a safe, fast, and convenient transportation system." - ... and also low-carbon... - for verification.

6. In the text we can find for K a few slightly different descriptions - "modes" and "methods" - for verification:

"The adjacent nodes have K transportation modes..."  (pay attention that K is not cursive at this place)

„?  set of transport methods” (maybe there must be "mode")

Another example "by transport mode ?"

7. Maybe this place could be simplified because of the frequent use of "multimodal transport"

"Due to the need to devise plans in advance and the unpredictable demand changes caused by seasons and emergencies in the transportation process of multimodal transport, multimodal transport service enterprises must formulate multimodal transport plans under the condition of uncertain demand."

8. "carbon emission-related carbon trading prices" - for verification (maybe there must be a comma btw. emission-related?)

9. 

"Symbol Description:
The main symbols in this work are defined as follows:"

Maybe "Symbol Description" has to be numbered as subparagraph 2.2 - for verification.

10. "particles' position in the Kth dimension", "lower search boundaries in the Kth dimension" - for verification k-th (in the formula it is also used as k).

11. "be the moment m in which all" - m should be cursive - for verification

12. "particles in the k-th dimension space" - k should be cursive - for verification

13. Table 1. Units KM or km - for verification

14. "By researching and consulting the relevant literature Error! Reference source not found.,"  - for verification

15.  Table 5. Maybe it will be better to precise (or describe in the text) the meaning of "3" in the column "Mode of Transport"

16. It is recommended to improve the conclusions by adding some precise and numerical results achieved by the authors in their research.

17. A few citations from MDPI journals could be added

 

Sincerely,

reviewer

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Accept in present form