Research on Passengers’ Preferences and Impact of High-Speed Rail on Air Transport Demand
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
sustainability-2100883-peer-review-v1
Passengers’ Preferences and Impact of High-Speed Rail on Air Transport Demand: A Review.
In this paper, author shares a review on passengers’ preferences and impact of high-speed rail on air transport demand. The topic is interesting. However, the paper needs some corrections to meet expectations of a journal. Some of my concerns are as follows:
1. Abstract should have one sentence per each: context and background, motivation, hypothesis, methods, results, conclusions. What problem did you study and why is it important? What methods did you use? What were your main results? And what conclusions can you draw from your results? Please make your abstract with more specific and quantitative results while it suits broader audiences.
2. The text written in various figures, particularly, Figure 1 and Figure 2, are not clear. Please resolve this issue.
3. Before the start of Section 2 (Related works), the authors should include a small summary about the next sections of the paper, for organization reasons. Please resolve this discrepancy.
4. The title is not clear, appealing, interesting and specific. I suggest to revise the paper title to make it more concise and suitable.
5. The literature review in Section 1 is not written critically. The limitations of the previous studies have not been discussed. Without this being done, the reason for carrying out the new study is not appealing.
6. The introduction should be effective, clear and well organized. It should summarize relevant research to provide context, and explain what findings of others, if any, are being challenged or extended. Introduction must include motivation and background, literature review of recent scientific papers covering the topic and leading to the submission hypothesis based on the gap analysis of the previously published research. The most important is to state the hypothesis of your work based on the gap analysis of the previously published research. For scientific and research papers, it is not necessary to give several references that say exactly the same. Anyway, that would be strange, since then what is innovative scientific contribution of referenced papers? For each thesis state only one reference.
7. The originality of the paper needs to be further clarified. Research paper should not solve just one case but improve knowledge by giving scientific contribution to either methodological knowledge, or a class of problems, and use the case only to test the hypothesis. The paper should be written from the international perspective rather than focusing on the issues of one country. However, the country issue can be used to set and test the hypothesis.
8. I also recommend the authors to professionally get the paper proofread, as I have noticed sentences with typos and inappropriate choice of words.
9.
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Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We deeply appreciate your time taken to review the manuscript. We would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and inputs given for the manuscript.
The authors have duly acknowledged each of the reviewer’s queries. The comments and responses are as follows:
Comment#1
Abstract should have one sentence per each: context and background, motivation, hypothesis, methods, results, conclusions. What problem did you study and why is it important? What methods did you use? What were your main results? And what conclusions can you draw from your results? Please make your abstract with more specific and quantitative results while it suits broader audiences.
Response:
The abstract has been amended to better reflect context and background, motivation, hypothesis, methods, results, and conclusions that have been included in the original manuscript.
Comment#2
The text written in various figures, particularly, Figure 1 and Figure 2, are not clear. Please resolve this issue.
Response:
Figure 1 and Figure 2 have been edited so that the text written in there can be clearer.
Comment#3
Before the start of Section 2 (Related works), the authors should include a small summary about the next sections of the paper, for organization reasons. Please resolve this discrepancy.
Response
A paragraph about the paper organization has been added to the manuscript, as follows
“This paper is divided into five sections: the introduction, bibliometric analysis, literature reviews, gaps and limitations and conclusions. The literature search process will be explained in the bibliometric analysis section, including the co-occurrence analysis to identify the related keywords. The literature review is divided into three different topics of interest: mode choice models and parameter estimation, attributes that influence travellers’ mode choices, and the impact of high-speed trains on air passengers’ demand. In the fourth section, the gaps and limitations in the previous studies are identified and explained. In the conclusions, the potential future research will be explored based on the identified gaps and limitations of previous studies.”
Comment#4
The title is not clear, appealing, interesting and specific. I suggest to revise the paper title to make it more concise and suitable.
Response:
The title has been revised to “Research on Passengers’ Preferences and Impact of High-Speed Rail on Air Transport Demand”.
Comment#5
The literature review in Section 1 is not written critically. The limitations of the previous studies have not been discussed. Without this being done, the reason for carrying out the new study is not appealing.
Response
The literature review in Section 1 has been revised to better reflect the limitation of previous studies and why the current study is needed.
“The most commonly used approaches in mode choice modelling are the discreet choice model (logit binomial, multinomial logit, nested logit model), logistic regression, or the analytical hierarchy process. In parameter estimation, the most commonly used methods are ordinary least squares (OLS) and maximum likelihood (MLE). These two methods are usually used for linear regression. However, MLE and OLS have some limitations. One of them is related to the assumption that the regression will follow Gauss–Markov assumptions. These methods will become unsuitable if the regression does not follow Gauss–Markov assumptions. Another limitation is related to the sam-ple size. If the sample size is too small (n<30), the use of MLE may cause bias in the parameter estimation results. The resulting standard error may not be suitable and may lead to an incorrect confidence interval.
Therefore, this study explores the literature on the various methods and studies that are related to mode choice models and identify possible ways to overcome the limitations of the current methods. This study also explores the attributes that have been used to explain the mode choice behaviour and considers possible new attributes that can be included in the mode choice models.”
Comment#6
The introduction should be effective, clear and well organized. It should summarize relevant research to provide context, and explain what findings of others, if any, are being challenged or extended. Introduction must include motivation and background, literature review of recent scientific papers covering the topic and leading to the submission hypothesis based on the gap analysis of the previously published research. The most important is to state the hypothesis of your work based on the gap analysis of the previously published research. For scientific and research papers, it is not necessary to give several references that say exactly the same. Anyway, that would be strange, since then what is innovative scientific contribution of referenced papers? For each thesis state only one reference.
Response
The introduction has been revised and re-written to provide a context for the current research.
Comment#7
The originality of the paper needs to be further clarified. Research paper should not solve just one case but improve knowledge by giving scientific contribution to either methodological knowledge, or a class of problems, and use the case only to test the hypothesis. The paper should be written from the international perspective rather than focusing on the issues of one country. However, the country issue can be used to set and test the hypothesis.
Response
The paper has been revised accordingly to give clearer view about the originality of the paper and its scientific contribution.
Comment#8
I also recommend the authors to professionally get the paper proofread, as I have noticed sentences with typos and inappropriate choice of words.
Response
The manuscript has been gone through professional proofreading. The typos and grammatical mistakes have been corrected accordingly. The sentences have been restructured based on the proofreading suggestions.
After review we used MDPI English editing (English Editing Certificate attached).
Thank you for your valuable comments.
Sincerely,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is well structured but authors need to sent the paper on proofreading as there is a lot of gramatical mistakes. For instance line 36 - aggresice, line 232- pasaanger, line 453 - taht ...
As well there are sentences that need to be formulate. For instance:
From the literature review and analysis, it shows the the important impact of HSR on the aviation industry.
Speed is the main factors....
Following recommendation: Therefore, the decision maker should be equipped with right data, method and analysis to come out with right plan for HSR development. This is so trivial and need to be removed or adequate recommendation should be listed.
Between Table 5 and line 405 need to be one empty row.
In line 469 Methods
In the Table 4 in the column Results, put the fullstop at the end of each row. The same apply in Appendix A.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We deeply appreciate your time taken to review the manuscript. We would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and inputs given for the manuscript.
The authors have duly acknowledged each of the reviewer’s queries. The comments and responses are as follows:
Comment#1
The paper is well structured but authors need to sent the paper on proofreading as there is a lot of gramatical mistakes. For instance line 36 - aggresice, line 232- pasaanger, line 453 - taht ...
As well there are sentences that need to be formulate. For instance:
From the literature review and analysis, it shows the the important impact of HSR on the aviation industry.
Speed is the main factors....
Response:
The manuscript has been gone through proofreading services. The grammatical mistakes have been revised accordingly, based on inputs from reviewer’s comments and proofreading results. The sentences have been revised accordingly.
Comment#2
Following recommendation: Therefore, the decision maker should be equipped with right data, method and analysis to come out with right plan for HSR development. This is so trivial and need to be removed or adequate recommendation should be listed.
Response:
This part has been revised and re-written accordingly, as follows:
“Therefore, the decision maker should be equipped with the appropriate data, such as accurate prediction of potential mode shift and factors that influence it, to be able to come out with the appropriate plan for HSR development.”
Comment#3
Between Table 5 and line 405 need to be one empty row.
In line 469 Methods
Response
Both parts have been revised accordingly.
Comment#4
In the Table 4 in the column Results, put the fullstop at the end of each row. The same apply in Appendix A.
Response:
Table 4 and Appendix A have been revised accordingly, to put full stop at the end of each row.
After review we used MDPI English editing (English Editing Certificate attached).
Thank you for your valuable comments.
Sincerely,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
No comment
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is now suitable for publication.
