The Barrier Effect and Pedestrian Mobility/Accessibility on Urban Highways: An Analysis Based on the Belo Horizonte/Minas Gerais/Brazil Ring Road

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic of the paper is interesting and current. The authors made a nice concept and presented the results properly. However, I have a same of suggestions for improving the paper, before publication.

Please see the guidelines for authors and format the paper.

The introduction and background of the problem are nicely described. However, in the part where they talk about the safety of children and other categories of pedestrians in traffic, please cite the following papers.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2021.101125

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.02.019

https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2020.1770741

The paper methodology is short and clear.

Please separate the results and discussion sections.

In the part of the conclusion, write in detail the the future directions of research, the limitation of the study, as well as the practical application of the results in practice.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: Please see the guidelines for authors and format the paper.

Response 1: The article was formatted following the instructions for authors and we used the template provided by the journal. However, in the first version of the article we made two modifications to the sections, including a literature review section (2. Barrier effect: concept and background) and joining the results and discussions in a single section. After all, we noticed from the major review that this was not the ideal format and the article has been reorganized. Part of the literature review has been moved to the section 1. Introduction and part to the section 4. Discussion. The results Section (3) has been separated from the Discussion (4). Please let us know if the changes we've made didn't meet your expectations.

Point 2: The introduction and background of the problem are nicely described. However, in the part where they talk about the safety of children and other categories of pedestrians in traffic, please cite the following papers: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2021.101125

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.02.019

https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2020.1770741

Response 2: The proposed articles were analyzed and added in the text (lines 81-90). We appreciate the rich contribution with these suggestions.

Point 3: Please separate the results and discussion sections.

Response 3: We accepted the request and the results and discussion sections were separated, as explained at Point 1.

Point 4: In the part of the conclusion, write in detail the the future directions of research, the limitation of the study, as well as the practical application of the results in practice.

Response 4: We believe this request was satisfied by reorganizing the text and rewriting the conclusions, along the lines 352-378. Please let us know if it's not explained well enough.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for inviting me to review this manuscript. A very interesting and well organised paper. I have only a few comments:

1.        Urban highways may considerably influence the mobility and accessibility of pedestrians and other active travel mode users. The authors considered physical accessibility only. This is of course a common practice in the transport field. But perhaps it can be more interesting if the author can discuss a bit about perceived accessibility (e.g., Lättman et al., 2018 and some other papers by the same authors) or maybe conduct research about the impacts on perceived accessibility in subsequent studies. Perceived accessibility may be a better indicator of the impacts of urban highways on people’s everyday lives.

2.        I would like to see some discussion about the impacts of urban highways during the Covid. Because in the early phase of Covid, many people, especially lower income populations and older people, highly depended on walking. Their accessibility was therefore more severely influenced by the pandemic and they have faced more difficulties during the pandemic compared to their better-off counterparts (Liu et al., 2021). How would urban highways influence local residents’ everyday activities during the pandemic? What would your research findings tell policymakers in a post-Covid era?

Reference

Lättman, K., Olsson, L. E., & Friman, M. (2018). A new approach to accessibility–Examining perceived accessibility in contrast to objectively measured accessibility in daily travel. Research in Transportation Economics, 69, 501-511.

 

Liu, Q., An, Z., Liu, Y., Ying, W., & Zhao, P. (2021). Smartphone-based services, perceived accessibility, and transport inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-lagged panel study. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 97, 102941.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Point 1: Urban highways may considerably influence the mobility and accessibility of pedestrians and other active travel mode users. The authors considered physical accessibility only. This is of course a common practice in the transport field. But perhaps it can be more interesting if the author can discuss a bit about perceived accessibility (e.g., Lättman et al., 2018 and some other papers by the same authors) or maybe conduct research about the impacts on perceived accessibility in subsequent studies. Perceived accessibility may be a better indicator of the impacts of urban highways on people’s everyday lives.

Response 1: We are grateful for this important contribution. We place it as a limitation of the article and highlighted as a suggestion for future directions of research, as can be seen on lines 368-374. Please let us know if the change didn't meet your expectations.

Point 2: I would like to see some discussion about the impacts of urban highways during the Covid. Because in the early phase of Covid, many people, especially lower income populations and older people, highly depended on walking. Their accessibility was therefore more severely influenced by the pandemic and they have faced more difficulties during the pandemic compared to their better-off counterparts (Liu et al., 2021). How would urban highways influence local residents’ everyday activities during the pandemic? What would your research findings tell policymakers in a post-Covid era?

Response 2: We agree with the proposal to expand the discussion on changes in mobility and accessibility standards during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we consider this a limitation for this article, mainly due to the available data used in the research. However, we put this suggestion for future studies (lines 365-367). Please let us know if the sugestion didn't meet your expectations.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This article aims to analyze pedestrian mobility and access to cross the proposed road. For this study the mobility and accessibility indicators extracted from the Origin and Destination Survey databases were applied.

The methods and methodology should be described in detailed and the original contribution should be highlighted. 

Please add more references from the last five years.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Point 1: The methods and methodology should be described in detailed and the original contribution should be highlighted.

Response 1: We appreciate this important contribution and inform you that section M has been revised and reorganized in the text in order to be clearer. In turn, the original contribution was highlighted in lines 78-80 and 352-358. Please let us know if it's not explained well enough.

Point 2: Please add more references from the last five years.

Response 2: More recent references have been added as suggested:

Trifunović, A.; Pešić, D.; Čičević, S.; AntićAaa, B. The importance of spatial orientation and knowledge of traffic signs for children's traffic safety. Accident Analysis & Prevention, v. 102, p. 81-92, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.02.019

Ropaka, M.; Nikolaou, D. Investigation of traffic and safety behavior of pedestrians while texting or web-surfing. Traffic Injury Prevention, 21:6, p. 389-394, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2020.1770741

Haghighi, M.; Bakhtari, F.; Sadeghi-Bazargani, H.; Nadrian, H. Strategies to promote pedestrian safety from the viewpoints of traffic and transport stakeholders in a developing country: A mixed-method study. Journal of Transport & Health, v. 22, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2021.101125

Lättman, K.; Olsson, L. E.; Friman, M. A new approach to accessibility – Examining perceived accessibility in contrast to objectively measured accessibility in daily travel. Research in Transportation Economics, v. 69, p. 501-511, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2018.06.002

Liu, Q.; An, Z.; Liu, Y.; Ying, W.; Zhao, P. Smartphone-based services, perceived accessibility, and transport inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-lagged panel study. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, v. 97, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2021.102941

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This is really not bad. Thanks for sharing.

Reviewer 3 Report

The contribution was described in terms of the applied indicators.