Evolutionary Game Analysis on Sharing Bicycles and Metro Strategies: Impact of Phasing out Subsidies for Bicycle–Metro Integration Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
First of all, I would like to congratulate the authors on their work.
The article provides interesting and new information about the ways of integrating public transport with bicycle transport and the possibilities of managing this transport.
In the following, I am sending comments to the text:
When characterizing the development of BSS, attention should be paid to the so-called generations. If in fact, as written in the sentence:
The bicycle-sharing service model has 45 emerged in China and gradually spread to the United Kingdom, Singapore, the United 46 States of America, and the Netherlands[4,5]
...bicycles so-called 4. Generations developed most in China, so earlier generations (with docks) were previously popular in other parts of the world as well. It would be worth emphasizing the context of generation – indicating why dockless BSS are the best solution for integrated transport and determining whether other, earlier generations could also be effective in integrating with public transport.
The model of the research procedure and the results obtained have been described correctly and I have no major objections to these parts of the article.
The biggest drawback of the submitted work is insufficient embedding in the literature. Although some references to other works are set in the introduction, it seems that there could be more of them, especially in terms of the flexibility of first and last mile travel shown in the article and the integration of active mobility with public collective transport. What's more, the work lacks a section dedicated to the discussion of the results obtained and their reference to the results described in other scientific publications – the article should be supplemented with this chapter.
The last chapter, entitled "conclusions", is in its current form more of a summary than a conclusion. Conclusions and implications for urban policies should be emphasised and clearly identified, emphasising the utilitarian nature of the work carried out. The work submitted for review is undoubtedly important and applicationable and can be used in decision-making in urban transport management.
I recommend publishing the work after making the suggested changes.
Author Response
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Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Using evolutionary game theory, this paper investigates the evolutionary mechanism of the cooperating process of sharing bicycles and metro system considering the phasing out subsidies. The topic itself was interesting, but I think improvements need to be made before it is approved for publication.
1. Some professional academic terms are misused. For example, capacity should be the capability of a waterway to deal with the traffic and when the traffic volume exceeds this limit traffic flow stops, as is often experienced on congested roads. In this paper, the “capacity” is more like “volume”.
2. The authors are suggested to improve the motivation of this paper. Why does this paper focus on the impact of subsidy phasing out?
3. It is really hard for me to understand what these three stakeholders specifically refer to. Does the MC mean metro system and CT mean passenger? What does the “connection” here mean? If the metro agencies and bicycle-sharing operators are stakeholders, who provide subsidies to the three stakeholders?
4. In Section 4.3, the authors just considered subsidy phasing out of single stakeholder. It should be more practical considering the collaborative subsidy phasing out of multiple stakeholders.
5. In Section 3, the strategies of each stakeholder can only choose 0 or 1, but in Section 4.3 the strategies can be a continuous number between 0 and 1.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
This study uses the evolutionary game model to assess the impact of phasing out subsidies for the bicycle-metro integration model. I have no major concerns with this paper, and I admit that’s quite rare for me as a reviewer, as I rarely suggest a paper is ready to go without much need for revision. I do have a few suggested comments below, but they are relatively minor and don’t substantially change the content or communicative value of the paper.
The Conclusion section seems so short. What are the methodological and practical implications of this study?
The wording has a few flaws as well, though I have only identified some. The paper itself, whilst understandable, needs editing by native speakers. Some errors are as follows.
“the metro system is linked to the sharing bicycles system by the rule of rewards and penalties for irregular parking, which goal is to enhance the attractiveness of metro transportation and gain more revenue.”
I recommend the author conduct a comprehensive edit of the document and suggest using a professional proofreading service when resubmitting this paper.
Considering all the comments presented here, I recommend publishing this paper in Sustainability. The paper is suitable for further consideration for Sustainability as it does demonstrate levels of significance and originality that meet the benchmark standards of excellence for this journal.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The authors designed a bicycle-metro integrated model based on evolutionary game theory, and explored the evolutionary mechanism of the sharing bicycles connection system and metro system under the subsidy phasing out. The method developed in this article present some novelty to the scientific community, and the outcomes are satisfactory. Nevertheless, I have found some issues regarding this manuscript: the presentation, writing, and technical aspects. In this sense, I have some significant concerns outlined below.
1. The description of the research gap in the abstract is too brief to give the reader a clear perception of the study overview. Also, it prevents the reviewers from feeling the innovation of the paper.
2. It is recommended to use data to show the results of the study in the abstract instead of simply describing the analysis results in a general way.
3. Please emphasize your innovative contribution in the introduction section.
4. This paper only explores the integration model of bike-sharing and metro. However, under the bus-subway connection, a game analysis of bike-sharing and the bus-subway system as a whole would make the study more grounded potential. It is hoped that the authors can focus and discuss the research on multi-modal transit networks, which can make the paper more saturated and can provide the authors with future research directions. The references are as follows.
Evaluating the dynamic resilience of the multi-mode public transit network for sustainable transport, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2022.
5. In section 2.1, the authors mention that the decision goal of travel participants is to zero out the cost of travel. However, is minimizing travel time more important in daily travel interactions? Is it possible to take travel time into account?
6. In the conclusion, the authors should have described the limitations of this work and the direction of future work in more detail. In addition, the study based on this thesis could explore more about the impact of traffic management strategies on traffic resilience. For example, the following literature could be consulted.
Exploring the resilience assessment framework of the urban road network for sustainable cities, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2022.
7. I strongly recommend that the authors carefully recheck the English for grammar, spelling, and syntax.
I hope these comments help the authors to improve the paper further.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to thank the authors for their responses and corrections made to the text. I have no other comments to the article and I suggest to accept it for publication.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your approval of my manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors present a reasonable response to my previous comments.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your approval of my manuscript, and we have revised some language issues.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors rewrote the paper based on my comments. This version is a significant improvement over the first submission. I have minor comments. Now, “bikeshare+metro” references are insufficient. More “bikeshare+metro” references are needed to support the authors’ claim.
For example, see the two papers.
Guo, Y., Yang, L., Lu, Y., & Zhao, R. (2021). Dockless bike-sharing as a feeder mode of metro commute? The role of the feeder-related built environment: Analytical framework and empirical evidence. Sustainable Cities and Society, 65, 102594.
Guo, Y., Yang, L., Wang, W., & Guo, Y. (2020). Traffic safety perception, attitude, and feeder mode choice of metro commute: Evidence from Shenzhen. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(24), 9402.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors have made detailed and informative work in that paper, with a lot of work and well-revised writing. However, I still had to decide to reject the draft. The changes suggested by the authors based on the previous round are not satisfactory, and the following problems still exist:
(1) As for the revision of the third suggestion, this paper does not highlight the innovation of the research, but emphasizes the significance of this study. There are differences between research significance and research innovation.
(2) As for the modification of the fifth suggestion, this article does not make any substantive modification, but simply explains it. This problem will make the article unable to show the innovation and feasibility of scientific research papers.
I hope these comments help the authors to improve the paper further.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors rewrote the paper based on my comments. This version is a significant improvement over the first submission. Thus, I appreciate their attention to most of my suggestions and consider the paper to be ready for publication.
Reviewer 4 Report
It is still recommended that the authors make more in-depth modifications in terms of innovation and significance in the field of traffic engineering.
