Why Do Students Choose Buses over Private Motorcycles and Motorcycle-Based Ride-Sourcing? A Hybrid Choice Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General conclusion: 

The topic of the paper is very interesting. The conducted analysis is comprehensive and the paper is well structured. Also, the applied methodology is appropriate, innovative and very well described. However, the main questions that arise are as follows:

• Why the target group was only high school and university students and not all Yogyakarta city residents?
• Are the considered transport modes (MBRS, bus, and motorcycles) only available alternatives to the respondents? What about the passenger cars?
• Whether the results are transferable, i.e. whether they can be applied in some other countries and cities. Some minor suggestions are given below?

The Topic of the paper:

The topic of the paper is very interesting and significant.

Title of the paper:

The title of the paper should be more precise. Namely, based on the title of the paper it can be concluded that the paper considered the modal shift of the entire city population, not only high school and university students.

Introduction:

The introduction is written appropriately and contains all the necessary elements.

Literature Review:

Within the literature review the authors should state methods used in previous research for determining the factors affecting the transport mode usage.

Methodology:

The question that arises is whether MBRS, bus, and private vehicle (i.e. motorcycle) are the only available alternatives for respondents. Also, the authors should explain why the target group was only high school and university students and not all Yogyakarta city residents? Besides that, the authors have to explain why the respondents must meet the criteria that the distance from their houses to the bus stop was no more than 400 meters. The question that also arises is whether the sample is representative, given that as many as 63% of respondents are female.

The design of the study is described in detail. The applied methodology is appropriate and very well described.

Results and Discussion:

The results are appropriately shown in the tables and commented in the text. However, within the discussion, there is no comparative analysis of the obtained results with the results of previous research

Conclusions:

It is necessary to explain whether the results are transferable, i.e. whether they can be applied in some other countries and cities. Also, within the conclusion, the authors should clearly state the limitations of the paper.

The authors should also consider some of the following papers:

Aguilera-García, Á., Gomez, J., Velázquez, G., & Vassallo, J. M. (2022). Ridesourcing vs. traditional taxi services: Understanding users’ choices and preferences in Spain. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 155, 161–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TRA.2021.11.002

Habib, K. N. (2019). Mode choice modelling for hailable rides: An investigation of the competition of Uber with other modes by using an integrated non-compensatory choice model with probabilistic choice set formation. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 129, 205–216. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TRA.2019.08.014

Kim, E. J. (2021). Analysis of Travel Mode Choice in Seoul Using an Interpretable Machine Learning Approach. Journal of Advanced Transportation, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6685004

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments. We have addressed all of your comments. Please check in the attached file. 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Discrete selection models are a typical task in transportation engineering.

1. The references are not comprehensive, for example, there are some data-driven methods that need to be briefly introduced. 

[1] Zheng, Y., Wang, S., & Zhao, J. (2021). Equality of opportunity in travel behavior prediction with deep neural networks and discrete choice models. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 132, 103410.

[2] Liu, Y., Lyu, C., Liu, Z., & Cao, J. (2021). Exploring a large-scale multi-modal transportation recommendation system. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 126, 103070.

2. This paper has too many references from the Internet and the percentage is too high, so this paper does not look like an academic paper. I strongly recommend that the author make changes and keep a maximum of 3-5 references from the Internet. In addition to transportation research part c, emerging top journals in the field of transportation can also be cited, for example，'Communications in Transportation Research'.

3. 'A previous study concluded that there are three factors that affect transport mode choices.' Here, the author needs to add a reference.

Ortúzar, J.d.D. 2021. Future transportation: Sustainability, complexity and individualization of choices. Communications in Transportation Research, 1, 100010. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments. We have addressed all of your comments. Please check in the attached file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

General comments:

This paper is very interesting and the topic is actual and of great relevance, especially considering the benefit in the environmental impact, in the optical of SDGs.

The methodology is presented into detail and the results are clearly shown.

Some revisions are necessary after the publication.

Introduction should be improved. The objectives of the work should be highlighted into detail in the paper.

The research issue could also take into account and develop an analysis of the behavior of pollutant emissions for the specific case examined.

 

Minor comments:

 

ABSTRACT:

Please underline the most important result obtained in this research.

-INTRODUCTION:

Please add other References with recent publication years to underline the actuality of the research topic. The literature review and the state of the art could be enriched. Try to add some references about the current numerical approach for  optimization approach in transport field.

Please try to contextualize the problem in the introduction considering the general aim of the topic (Sustainable Development Goal, Human health, sustainable transport…)

-Line 6 “priorities”. Please here add these References:

-Angelelli E, Speranza MG. The application of a vehicle routing problem with intermediate facilities. Eur J Operat Res Soc 2002;53. 994-952.

-Das S, Bhattacharyya Kr. Optimization of municipal solid waste collection and transportation routes. Waste Manag 2015;43:9–1.

-Laporte G, Musmanno R, Vocaturo F. An adaptive large neighbourhood search heuristic for the capacitated arc-routing problem with stochastic demands. Transport Sci 2010;44(1):125–35.

-Marseglia, G., Mesa, J.A. Ortega Riejos, F.A., Piedra de La Cuadra, R.P.A heuristic for the deployment of collecting routes for urban recycle stations (eco-points) Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, January 2022, 101222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2021.101222.

-Bertazzi L, Speranza MG, Ukovich W. Minimization of logistic costs with given frequencies. Transp Res Part B Methodol 1997;31(4):327–40.

-Carrese S, Cuneo V, Nigro M, Pizzuti R, Ardito CF, Marseglia G. Optimization of downstream fuel logistics based on road infrastructure conditions and exposure to accident events. Transport Pol 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2019.10.0 16.

-Martins S, Ostermeier M, Amorim P, Hübner A, Almada-Lobo B. Product-oriented time window assignment for a multi-compartment vehicle routing problem. Eur J. Oper Res 2019;276:893–909.

-Please underline the novelty of this paper respect to previous considered in the Literature review.

 

-CONLCUSIONS:

Please try to underline the point of force of this research and the importance of this work.

 

 

REFERENCES:

Please add the doi for each publication.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments. We have addressed all of your comments. Please check in the attached file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript is very interesting and there is not much to tell. Methodology is sound and results coherent.

Few remarks to improve its attractiveness:

1) avoid commercial names (SPSS, Gojek, Grab...); state instead activities, missions, positions, functions, etc.

2) report costs with alternative currencies in the table, so to avoid readers to convert the values by themselves, via the currency rate provided

3) safety seems a little bit underestimated, and just in the concluding parts; consider its relevance in terms of costs, as well (on this aim, consider: Corazza, M.V., Musso, A.,Finikopoulos ,K., Sgarra, V. A methodology for the evaluation of road accidents health care costs for powered two-wheelers: The Rome case study, in: Case Studies on Transport Policy, Vol. 5, n. 2, June 2017, pp. 417–424)

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments. We have addressed all of your comments. Please check in the attached file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf