Sustainable Status Assessment of the Transit-Oriented Development in Doha’s Education City

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article deals with a very interesting topic regarding the ‘Sustainable Status Assessment of the Transit-Oriented Development in Doha’s ‘Education City’’. Overall, it is a comprehensive article and the findings provided indicate that a great deal of effort was put in. Suggestions for improvements that could be performed to the manuscript prior to its publication are the following:

 

- Abstract: due largely to the region’s hot climate -> largely, due to the region’s hot climate

- lines 34-42: It is suggested to add some more relevant references

- lines 56-59: Why did the authors select this site among others near the metro stations? What made Education City stand out? Could the results/conclusions be extended to other study areas with similar characteristics? Some comments are presented through lines 196-197 and 205-209. However, it would be interesting to elaborate more on these topics at this point as well (try to be more analytical and clear about your choice).

- line 216-217: Was your method and research design based on previous studies (trying to improve this workflow) or it was something built from the start?

- line 404: ‘Innovative Tools for Mobility Culture Modification’ Through this chapter the authors have to explain in more detail why their proposed methods and tools could be considered innovative. What new approaches do they have to offer? Where do they excel compared to past studies? Try to be a bit more specific and clear about this topic (line 420: ‘innovations intended to encourage a new mobility culture within the Education City’)

- line 408: ‘inviting’ -> it might be better to use the terms attractive or appealing.

In general, it would be interesting to also comment on the following: Are there any other factors that should be taken into account in case of implementation regarding other sites in Qatar? What could be some possible restrictions or challenges if the proposed methods would be implemented in different study areas presenting similar climate conditions? In what ways your work could be used as a stepping stone for similar future research studies?

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Kindly find attached the feedback.

Thanks a lot

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Although the provided analysis and results seem evident and well established in literature (analyzing the use the urban transportation and the needs to improve the urban transportation), and consequently it provides no significant contribution, the study provide interesting discussion about the existing problems and the suggested solution through case study and users survey. this can be sufficient for the local contest. The following issues should be addressed.

Abstract

Avoid abbreviation in the abstract

The introduction

The introduction and the state of the art needs to address in depth similar studies around the world and in the gulf region in terms of achieved results so far and the existed knowledge gap. Although the state-of-the-art section provides literature about Transit-Oriented Development TOD, Green TOD, and Urban voids, there is a need to address similar previous studies for Qatar or for countries with similar climate.

The methodology

The methodology needs to be detailed. For example, no details are provided about the survey, “survey was shared with the EC metro station users to identify their needs, behavior, and preferred modes of transportation” the questions, how it collected, when it collected and response according to user’s category (students, visitors, residents, gender … etc.

The analysis of the case study is general and lacks the focus on specific items and lacks a reference or a base case to measure the efficiency or effectiveness of the analyzed aspects.

The results

Section 4.1 only present what is well known about the multifunctional use of the area and public transportation (it is not a result from this study, it can be considered in the methodology as a description of the case study)

The survey should provide the most important result for this study; however, the authors didn’t present a detailed survey and a detailed description of the answers. The survey could ask the users about the reason why they use the selected way of transportation and ask for other details like what is needed to reach the sustainable status.  

The analysis is superficial, authors can analyze in depth the results specially the effect of the use of smart systems, stop location, and street and pathways furniture, materials, greenery and shading. For example, studying the percentage of shaded areas and green areas, pavement materials (can be done for a selected street or a pathway)

The results in section 4.2 to 4.5 are not clearly presented. It lacks the consistency. The authors could present the results with detailed tables indicating the reference base case situation and what is achieved in the case study and what needs to be added and/or improved.  

Conclusion 

The recommendation for a successful public transportation use is well known and well established in the literature, hence the study gives no particular contribution related to the case study or urban development in the selected city. therefore, in the conclusion authors should emphasize on what can fit with this particular culture, climate and community. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Kindly find attached the feedback.

 

Thanks a lot

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The methodology still not improved, especially the survey. There is no need to attach the survey questions at the end of the paper authors need to explain and discuss those questions in the methodology section.

Another issue here which is: why you address the metro station users only and not all the users of the EC. It is strange that the metro station users say that they use car (57% of them) aren’t they using metro? And how they combine the use of different transportation methods?

Also, the result from the survey needs to be detailed in the results section. There is a weakness in this part (survey methods and results analysis). Again, this should be a main part of the study. The paper gives the sense that the survey is imposed in the study and has a weak linkage with other methods and results.

Furthermore, in the results discussion and conclusions, a brief comparison should highlight the relationship between the results from the survey and site analysis.

4.2 section is still read as a method rather than a result (except for the part that explain the results from the survey). Here there is a weakness related to the structure of the methodology and results sections. The readers will wonder why the authors are not following the logic in the presented chart in figure 3. The chart has a consistent flow and can provide a solution for the weak structure of the paper, authors can use the title in this chart to restructure the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear respected reviewer,

Thank you very much again for the time and effort to review our manuscript.

Attached is our feedback.

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The previous comments are sufficiently addressed.