Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

The article presented to me for review is interesting empirically and methodically. While the literature review includes recent references, it has several shortcomings. First of all, the authors do not refer to the transport system, but to its subsystem - passenger transport, omitting the truck transport subsystem. The transport system includes both, which are complementary to each other. This should be indicated in the title as "... sustainable passenger transportation system" or "subsystem". In my opinion, however, there was no reference to the transport of cargo, which is very important in the context of the discussed issues. Maybe the authors will find inspiration in:

 

1.       Szaruga, E.; Załoga, E. Environmental Management from the Point of View of the Energy Intensity of Road Freight Transport and Shocks. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 14417. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192114417

2.       Szaruga, E.; Załoga, E. Qualitative–Quantitative Warning Modeling of Energy Consumption Processes in Inland Waterway Freight Transport on River Sections for Environmental Management. Energies 2022, 15, 4660. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15134660

In Table 3, you should explain the letter N, and distinguish C1, C2, C11, etc. from Type C*. At C41, C42, and C43 C is missing.

 

Please add a broader description of Figure 3.

 

In the conclusions, please extend the novelty and describe the limitations of the research.

 

Congratulations and good luck in the next stages of the publishing process.

Author Response

 

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

 

1- The article presented to me for review is interesting empirically and methodically. While the literature review includes recent references, it has several shortcomings. First of all, the authors do not refer to the transport system, but to its subsystem - passenger transport, omitting the truck transport subsystem. The transport system includes both, which are complementary to each other. This should be indicated in the title as "... sustainable passenger transportation system" or "subsystem". In my opinion, however, there was no reference to the transport of cargo, which is very important in the context of the discussed issues. Maybe the authors will find inspiration in:

           

1. Szaruga, E.; Załoga, E. Environmental Management from the Point of View of the Energy Intensity of Road Freight Transport and Shocks. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health2022, 19, 14417. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192114417
2. Szaruga, E.; Załoga, E. Qualitative–Quantitative Warning Modeling of Energy Consumption Processes in Inland Waterway Freight Transport on River Sections for Environmental Management. Energies2022, 15, 4660. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15134660

Reply:

Thanks a lot for your constructive comment. According to your valuable opinion, the title has been modified. Also, the mentioned references have been discussed in the literature section. (Lines153-157)

2- In Table 3, you should explain the letter N, and distinguish C1, C2, C11, etc. from Type C*. At C41, C42, and C43 C is missing.

 

Reply:

Thank you for your comment. Table 3 has been modified and highlighted.

3- Please add a broader description of Figure 3.

 

Reply:

Your comment is valuable to us and we truly appreciate your efforts for help improve the quality of the paper. Additional descriptions related to Fig. 3 have been added and highlighted. (Lines 497-500)

 

4- In the conclusions, please extend the novelty and describe the limitations of the research.

 

Reply:

           The additional phrases about novelty and limitation of the study have been added and highlighted. (lines 507-510, 525-526)

5- Congratulations and good luck in the next stages of the publishing process.

 

Reply:

All changes were made and highlighted in the revised version. Thank you for your efforts to improve the quality of the paper.

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The evaluated paper presents a high level of content and methodology. The presented approach addresses a gap and can be used in a very important socio-economic area. I suggest that such elements of the article as the purpose, hypotheses or research questions could be completed or better presented.
After this completion, I propose to publish the paper. 

Author Response

Reply to Reviewers of Manuscript “ID: sustainability-2040025-R2”

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

1- The evaluated paper presents a high level of content and methodology. The presented approach addresses a gap and can be used in a very important socio-economic area. I suggest that such elements of the article as the purpose, hypotheses or research questions could be completed or better presented. After this completion, I propose to publish the paper. 

Reply:

Thanks a lot for your help. According to your valuable opinion, the related descriptions have been added and highlighted. (Lines 230-234)

2- References to all studies reviewed in this manuscript have not been provided in the References section. See lines 202 to 212, for example.

Reply:

Thank you for your constructive comment. All references were added in the revised version.

3- Unfortunately, Section 4 is the weakest section of this manuscript. However, this section should comprehensively reflect how the proposed approach is implemented. I strongly recommend again that this section must be completely rewritten and expanded by adding further explanations.

Reply:

Your comment is valuable to us and we truly appreciate your efforts for help improve the quality of the paper. Subsection 4.4 have been added to explain the implementation of the proposed approach. (Lines 376-383)

4- The authors should briefly introduce the experts used in this research and their backgrounds and experiences in Section 5. The reason for selecting three experts for this research is still unclear. Can the proposed approach continue to provide reliable results by changing the number of experts?

Reply:

           We are so thankful for your comment. In Section 5, a brief description of the experts was provided, which we tried to provide in the revised version, all the relevant explanations and the reason for selecting the experts and their backgrounds and experiences. (Lines 379-380)

5- I strongly recommend that the authors must do proofreading and highlight all changes in this manuscript to follow-up by reviewers.

Reply:

All changes were made and highlighted in the revised version. Thank you for your efforts to improve the quality of the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper assesses sustainable transportation system to address climate change based on MCDM methods in an uncertainty environment. But there are some main problems in my opinion, and they are as follows:

1 What’s the uncertainty environment? It needs to be explained and defined in the paper.

2 L237: Full cell vehicles? It is wrong. It should be fuel cell vehicles. How to deal with the intersection of different vehicles? Some vehicles are both electric vehicles and Autonomous Vehicles.

3 Eq. (2): μF:B→[0.1].vF:B→[0.1].πF:B→[0.1]. 0≤(μ?(b))^2+(v?(b))^2+(πF(b))^2≤1? Is it right? The maximum value may be 3

4 Table 8: How to get the weights? Are they reasonable?

Author Response

 

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

This paper assesses sustainable transportation system to address climate change based on MCDM methods in an uncertainty environment. But there are some main problems in my opinion, and they are as follows:

 

1- What’s the uncertainty environment? It needs to be explained and defined in the paper.

Reply:

Thanks a lot for your comment. Related explanations of spherical fuzzy sets have been hihghlighted. (Lines 70-81)

2- L237: Full cell vehicles? It is wrong. It should be fuel cell vehicles. How to deal with the intersection of different vehicles? Some vehicles are both electric vehicles and Autonomous Vehicles

Reply:

Thank you for your constructive comment. The corrections have been done. According to the case study of this research, the mentioned vehicles are not accessible in Tehran. So, we cannot evaluate them as alternatives.

3- Eq. (2): μF:B→[0.1].vF:B→[0.1].πF:B→[0.1]. 0≤(μ?(b))^2+(v?(b))^2+(πF(b))^2≤1? Is it right? The maximum value may be 3

Reply:

According to the concept of spherical fuzzy sets, this condition must be confirmed. So, the sum of the  must be greater or equal to 0 and lower or equal to 1.

4- Table 8: How to get the weights? Are they reasonable?

 

Reply:

           We are so thankful for your comment. Experts have been weighted according to their background and experience and their opinions influence in the final decision matrix according to their weights.

5- I strongly recommend that the authors must do proofreading and highlight all changes in this manuscript to follow-up by reviewers.

Reply:

All changes were made and highlighted in the revised version. Thank you for your efforts to improve the quality of the paper.

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

I read and investigated the paper entitled as "Assessing sustainable transportation system to address climate change based on MCDM methods in an uncertainty environment" I was assigned to as a reviewer.
The paper is quite interesting for the audience of the journal. However, there are concerns that I have for this paper which should be addressed and corrected before publish.

1.The last part of abstract should be augmented with empirical findings leading to policy recommendations.
The beginning of the abstract has two sentences that start with "one of the..." term. The latter could be altered for flow of reading.

2. Annotations are in capital letters in some places (line 99), but not in other places for all (such as line 73). Adapt one strategy for annotations. I suggest no capital letters needed except for person names. But just a suggestion. I assume that Neutrosophic sets could be neutrosophic sets, Spherical fuzzy set can be spherical fuzzy set for instance.

3.At line 110, "A new decision-making approach to assess and choose the best alternative...". Here, based on what approach and how, should be detailed in the sentence.

4.Section 3 is too short to be a seperate section. Section 3 and 4 should be combined. The name should be methodology or similar related name. It should start with section 3.1. problem definition, followed by 3.2 proposed model.In the beginning sentences of "proposed model", how the proposed model solves the problem defined in section before should be answered.

5.This is maybe the most serious concern about this study that I had. Where is the data section? Where are the Descriptive statistics table for data? What sources are used, that is the unit of data? What is the sample size? Is this data appropriate for fuzzy analysis I cannot measure. The analysis focuses on uncertainty. If we don't see the data and its distributional characteristics, how can we know if fuzzy is the appropriate method for this dataset? This is really a serious flaw of this paper. Did I miss it in this paper? Maybe there is a problem with this version of PDF file because I cannot believe this. Therefore, I suggest adding a Data and Descriptive Statistics section with subheading. Followed by a descriptive statistics table for the data used. Also, show with some tests that the data has strong volatility / heteroskedasticity / nonlinearity / nonnormality so that fuzzy approach was needed.

6.After "Comparative analysis" section, a "Discussion and Policy Suggestions" section should be added. This section should discuss the findings and what it means for municipalities and society and policy makers in the context of sustainability.

7.Same for conclusion, conclusion ends with future suggestions which is nice, however, policy suggestions and what it means for society should be discussed for readers before future suggestions.

Other issues:

8.Top of the first page says "Type of the Paper (Article.)" Check this. It should be revised. There is a typo here.

9.The reviewing system asks if there is similarity. I checked the article with similarity software and it led to 22%. This is high. The similarity should be checked with a software and it should be reduced before publish.  

Author Response

Reply to Reviewers of Manuscript “ID: sustainability-2040025-R2”

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

I read and investigated the paper entitled as "Assessing sustainable transportation system to address climate change based on MCDM methods in an uncertainty environment" I was assigned to as a reviewer.
The paper is quite interesting for the audience of the journal. However, there are concerns that I have for this paper which should be addressed and corrected before publish.

1.The last part of abstract should be augmented with empirical findings leading to policy recommendations.
The beginning of the abstract has two sentences that start with "one of the..." term. The latter could be altered for flow of reading.
Reply:

Thanks a lot for your constructive comment. According to your valuable opinion, the modifications have been highlighted. (Lines 19, 28-29)

2. 
   Annotations are in capital letters in some places (line 99), but not in other places for all (such as line 73). Adapt one strategy for annotations. I suggest no capital letters needed except for person names. But just a suggestion. I assume that Neutrosophic sets could be neutrosophic sets, Spherical fuzzy set can be spherical fuzzy set for instance.
   Reply:

Thanks a lot for your comment. According to your suggestion, annotiations converted to small letters.

3.At line 110, "A new decision-making approach to assess and choose the best alternative...". Here, based on what approach and how, should be detailed in the sentence.
Reply:

Thanks a lot for your help. According to your valuable opinion, the corrections have been done and highlighted.

4.Section 3 is too short to be a seperate section. Section 3 and 4 should be combined. The name should be methodology or similar related name. It should start with section 3.1. problem definition, followed by 3.2 proposed model.In the beginning sentences of "proposed model", how the proposed model solves the problem defined in section before should be answered.
Reply:

Thanks. The corrections gave been made in the revised version.

5.This is maybe the most serious concern about this study that I had. Where is the data section? Where are the Descriptive statistics table for data? What sources are used, that is the unit of data? What is the sample size? Is this data appropriate for fuzzy analysis I cannot measure. The analysis focuses on uncertainty. If we don't see the data and its distributional characteristics, how can we know if fuzzy is the appropriate method for this dataset? This is really a serious flaw of this paper. Did I miss it in this paper? Maybe there is a problem with this version of PDF file because I cannot believe this. Therefore, I suggest adding a Data and Descriptive Statistics section with subheading. Followed by a descriptive statistics table for the data used. Also, show with some tests that the data has strong volatility / heteroskedasticity / nonlinearity / nonnormality so that fuzzy approach was needed.
Reply:

The comprehensive initial decision matrix has been provided in Table 9. Then, the SF-based decision matrix is provided in Table 10, after that, de defuzzification process in implemented to calculate alternative scores according to the MARCOS method.

6.After "Comparative analysis" section, a "Discussion and Policy Suggestions" section should be added. This section should discuss the findings and what it means for municipalities and society and policy makers in the context of sustainability.
Reply:

Thanks for your comment. The mentioned descriptions have been added 4.4.subsection. (Lines 503-506)

7.Same for conclusion, conclusion ends with future suggestions which is nice, however, policy suggestions and what it means for society should be discussed for readers before future suggestions.
Reply:

The additional phrases have been added to conclusion section.

Other issues:

8.Top of the first page says "Type of the Paper (Article.)" Check this. It should be revised. There is a typo here.
Reply:

The type of the paper have been modified.

9.The reviewing system asks if there is similarity. I checked the article with similarity software and it led to 22%. This is high. The similarity should be checked with a software and it should be reduced before publish.

  Reply:

We try to revise the paper and reduce the similarity rate. 

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Q1: In the introduction (lines 38-39), the authors need to clarify which year energy demand will grow to 30%.

Q2: In fig.1, it is recommended to strengthen the logical relationship between the elements.

Q3: In Literature Review section, I don't think the authors have fully done a systematic review of sustainable transportation. It is recommended to supplement relevant literature (such as: Waqas M, Dong Q, Ahmad N, et al. Understanding Acceptability towards Sustainable Transportation Behavior, A Case Study of China[J]. Sustainability, 2018, 10(10): 3686. Shukla P R, Dhar S. Energy policies for low carbon sustainable transport in Asia[J]. Energy Policy, 2015, 81: 170-175. etc.) and strengthen logical expression from multi-dimensional perspectives and development process. In addition, the content of Table 1 is redundant with the main text, and it is recommended to delete or refine.

Q4: In lines 249-250, 5 main criteria include economic, social, environmental, sustainability, resilience, and social responsibility, which conflicts with lines 245-246 and table 3, please explain the reason or revise it.

Q5: It is recommended that the author carefully check the formula in the text and its explanation. For example, at line 274, it should be [0,1] instead of [0.1].

Q6: In section 4.4, the discussion and policy suggestion are poorly. It is recommended to comprehensively supplement and improve the manuscript from existing literature support, sustainable transportation system construction, and urban development planning, et al.

Q7: In conclusion section, it is recommended to put the last paragraph in the discussion section. In addition,

Q8: The main content of the research conclusion is to summarize the main results and explain the important findings of the article. Obviously, the conclusions of the current version are unsatisfactory. Moreover, it is a well-known fact that autonomous vehicles will play an important role in the future of sustainable transportation (lines 527-528), and more in-depth thinking is needed to reflect the highlights and key conclusions of this study.

Q9: Although autonomous vehicle technology has gradually matured, there is still a long way from being widely applied to urban transportation systems. Therefore, the authors should fully discuss the feasibility of the conclusions of this paper.

Q10: More importantly, what is the contribution through this research? I didn't get it in the current version of the paper. Authors should devote more words to discussing how to transform or improve sustainable urban transport systems based on the research results.

Author Response

Reply to Reviewers of Manuscript “ID: sustainability-2040025-R2”

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Q1: In the introduction (lines 38-39), the authors need to clarify which year energy demand will grow to 30%.

Reply:

Thank you for your comment. In the mentioned sentence, the year was also added in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Q2: In fig.1, it is recommended to strengthen the logical relationship between the elements.

Reply: In the current version, a description for Figure 1 was added. (Page62-64).

 

Q3: In Literature Review section, I don't think the authors have fully done a systematic review of sustainable transportation. It is recommended to supplement relevant literature (such as: Waqas M, Dong Q, Ahmad N, et al. Understanding Acceptability towards Sustainable Transportation Behavior, A Case Study of China[J]. Sustainability, 2018, 10(10): 3686. Shukla P R, Dhar S. Energy policies for low carbon sustainable transport in Asia[J]. Energy Policy, 2015, 81: 170-175. etc.) and strengthen logical expression from multi-dimensional perspectives and development process. In addition, the content of Table 1 is redundant with the main text, and it is recommended to delete or refine.

Reply:

Thank you very much for the references. All references were added to the article.

 Also, the references that were mentioned in the text of the literature review section and were not in the table were added to Table 1 and highlighted.

 

Q4: In lines 249-250, 5 main criteria include economic, social, environmental, sustainability, resilience, and social responsibility, which conflicts with lines 245-246 and table 3, please explain the reason or revise it.

Reply:

Thank you for your comment. Corrections were made and highlighted in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Q5: It is recommended that the author carefully check the formula in the text and its explanation. For example, at line 274, it should be [0,1] instead of [0.1].

Reply:

Thanks for your very correct comment. Formulas are checked and corrected in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Q6: In section 4.4, the discussion and policy suggestion are poorly. It is recommended to comprehensively supplement and improve the manuscript from existing literature support, sustainable transportation system construction, and urban development planning, et al.

Reply:

Thanks for your comment. We tried to modified the mentioned section in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Q7: In conclusion section, it is recommended to put the last paragraph in the discussion section. In addition,

Reply:

Thank you for your comment. Table 3 has been modified and highlighted in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Q8: The main content of the research conclusion is to summarize the main results and explain the important findings of the article. Obviously, the conclusions of the current version are unsatisfactory. Moreover, it is a well-known fact that autonomous vehicles will play an important role in the future of sustainable transportation (lines 527-528), and more in-depth thinking is needed to reflect the highlights and key conclusions of this study.

Reply:

Thank you for your precise review. We tried to extend explanations and emphasize the important finding in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Q9: Although autonomous vehicle technology has gradually matured, there is still a long way from being widely applied to urban transportation systems. Therefore, the authors should fully discuss the feasibility of the conclusions of this paper.

Reply:

Thank you constructive comment. We tried to extend the discussions about the feasibility of the conclusions in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Q10: More importantly, what is the contribution through this research? I didn't get it in the current version of the paper. Authors should devote more words to discussing how to transform or improve sustainable urban transport systems based on the research results.

Reply:

Thank you for your precise review. We tried to emphasize the contributions of the article in the Introduction section in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 6 Report

This paper employed MCDM techniques to prioritize different types of vehicles based on environmental, economical, resilience, and health care criteria. Although the research question is interesting I have several serious Issues. First, the paper topic and content are not compatible. Second, the paper needs extensive editing of English language and style. Third, the literature findings do not support the findings of this paper.

 

More detailed comments:

The abstract is not enough informative and should be rewritten. What types of vehicles are investigated in this paper? What criteria are considered for the comparison of vehicles? Based on which qualitative metric the proposed method has high validity and efficiency? You refer to climate change in the paper topic but there is no trace of it in the abstract and body of the paper.

In the introduction section, figure 1 needs reference if it is not produced by the authors.

The fourth contribution is not enough significant.

Many sentences are repetitive and general. For example:

• "Transportation system is one of the important factors of life and economic growth"
• "The transportation system is one of the main sources of fossil fuel consumption and as a result the emission of greenhouse gases and air pollution"
• "One of the main sources of such problems is the field of transportation, which leads to the emission of greenhouse gases"

In the last paragraph of section 2, "The city of Tehran, as the center, is the most populous city in Iran …", maybe you mean that Tehran is the capital of Iran.

In table 3, among all 13 criteria, only one of them is related to climate change but based on the paper topic your paper must be focused on climate change.

The caption of table 3, "Sustainable transportation evaluation criteria" or "Sustainable vehicle evaluation criteria?

Section 3.2 formulas need references.

In section 4, the relation between the left-side and right-side images is not clear.

Opinions of how many experts are included in this study?

The literature did not support your findings. You talk about sustainability and air pollution but the bicycle is in the last rank (Rank 6). Please referee to a reference that shows that autonomous vehicle leads to less air pollution and more sustainable transportation compared to a bicycle, metro, electric vehicle, etc.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reply to Reviewers of Manuscript “ID: sustainability-2040025-R2”

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper employed MCDM techniques to prioritize different types of vehicles based on environmental, economical, resilience, and health care criteria. Although the research question is interesting, I have several serious Issues. First, the paper topic and content are not compatible. Second, the paper needs extensive editing of English language and style. Third, the literature findings do not support the findings of this paper.

The abstract is not enough informative and should be rewritten. What types of vehicles are investigated in this paper? What criteria are considered for the comparison of vehicles? Based on which qualitative metric the proposed method has high validity and efficiency? You refer to climate change in the paper topic but there is no trace of it in the abstract and body of the paper.

Reply:

Thanks for your precise review, we tried to modify the abstract section in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

 

In the introduction section, figure 1 needs reference if it is not produced by the authors.

Reply:

Thanks for your precise review, Figure 1 was drawn by the authors according to the topic of the article and literature review.

 

The fourth contribution is not enough significant.

Reply:

According to your valuable comment, follows description has been added as section 4.4:

“4.4. Discussion and Policy Suggestions

         Transportation is one of the inevitable necessities of every human society that causes dynamism, economic and social development. Sustainable development in general and sustainable transportation in particular, is in search of finding a balance between environmental, social and economic qualities in the present and future (in the field of transportation facilities); In fact, the planning and design of sustainable transportation seeks to find solutions to reduce complications in different sectors. Many experts consider and believe that due to the importance of transportation in the economy, industry, politics, and even military sectors, it is the foundation of sustainable development. The more efficient the transportation, the more inclusive the development as a result; In other words, every move should be the most efficient in terms of cost-benefit and compatibility with the environment. The role of sustainable transportation in sustainable development in relation to factors such as public welfare, national economy, environment and social effects. Therefore, the selection of transportation systems that are compatible with the optimal consumption of fuel and available energy and environmental conditions is the first priority of sustainable development. Therefore, having a dynamic, coordinated and organized transportation network is one of the main criteria for measuring the development of societies. Based on this, a society that has a more efficient transportation network will benefit from a more comprehensive development.

The purpose of decision-making is to choose the best option, strategy and alternative or weight the factors involved in decision-making. Some decisions are very simple, but in the real world such decisions are very few, that's why it requires a powerful method that can measure each option based on different criteria. Also, in order to deal with the uncertainty in the opinions of experts, MCDM methods have been developed in the SFS. The SFS is developed of Pythagorean and intuitionistic fuzzy sets, which, unlike other fuzzy sets, has three degrees of membership, non-membership, and degree of doubt, which are defined independently of each other, and the membership functions are generalized on a spherical surface. they find Hence, this set gives more freedom to decision makers. Based on the results obtained from the developed approach, compared with other decision-making methods and sensitivity analysis, it is observed that the obtained results are reliable and stable. According to the results of the proposed approach, autonomous vehicles are suitable vehicle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Tehran transportation system. So, the municipality of Tehran, can improve the situation of the Tehran air pollution with smart investment.”

 

 

Many sentences are repetitive and general. For example:

• "Transportation system is one of the important factors of life and economic growth"
• "The transportation system is one of the main sources of fossil fuel consumption and as a result the emission of greenhouse gases and air pollution"
• "One of the main sources of such problems is the field of transportation, which leads to the emission of greenhouse gases"

In the last paragraph of section 2, "The city of Tehran, as the center, is the most populous city in Iran …", maybe you mean that Tehran is the capital of Iran.

Reply:

Thanks for your precise review, we tried to modify them in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

In table 3, among all 13 criteria, only one of them is related to climate change but based on the paper topic your paper must be focused on climate change.

Reply:

Thanks for your precise review. We tried to assess different aspects of sustainable transportation and climate change is one of the main criteria in our evaluation. So, we emphasized that criteria specified in the title.

 

The caption of table 3, "Sustainable transportation evaluation criteria" or "Sustainable vehicle evaluation criteria?

Reply:

Thanks for your constructive comment. The title of Table 3 was modified in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Section 3.2 formulas need references.

Reply:

Thanks for the precise review, the references of the formulas have been added to related descriptions in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

In section 4, the relation between the left-side and right-side images is not clear.

Reply:

Thanks for your constructive comment. The additional descriptions have been added in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

Opinions of how many experts are included in this study?

Reply:

Thanks for your precise review, the experience of 3 experts has been used in this research.

 

The literature did not support your findings. You talk about sustainability and air pollution but the bicycle is in the last rank (Rank 6). Please referee to a reference that shows that autonomous vehicle leads to less air pollution and more sustainable transportation compared to a bicycle, metro, electric vehicle, etc.

Reply:

The bicycle is one of the most important transportation alternatives that does not use fossil fuels and is beneficial for the sustainability of the environment. But in this article, the proposed options have been reviewed based on environmental, economic, etc. criteria, and according to the review, Autonomous Vehicles have been ranked first. If the bicycle was compared with other vehicles, it would be ranked in the top ranks, but due to factors such as speed, security, etc., the bicycle is not one of the best alternatives in this case.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 7 Report

The authors have chosen a current topic that corresponds to the objectives of the journal, which can be discussed within the scope of an article. The authors proved that they are able to organize their study logically and organize it around a well-structured train of thought. Also, they are able to express themselves grammatically correctly and fluently, they use the established terms of their field accurately and consciously. The text of the article meets the stylistic requirements for the prose of a scientific lecture. The authors' style is sufficiently professional, but at the same time understandable.

The appearance of the authors' work is organized and clear, but at the same time, there are a minimal number of figures and tables. There are no confusing typos or other errors in the text of the study. Except for one case, on page 10 of the article, the numbering of one subsection is not 3.3.3 SFS-MARCOS, but 3.2.3 SFS-MARCOS. The study testifies that the authors tried to fully process the knowledge and documents related to their chosen topic.

The literature used for the topic of the article is voluminous and topic specific. The list of used literature is synchronized with the references in the text, the same amount of literature is included in the list of references as is indicated in the text. In the bibliography used, however, the complete page numbers of some used books are missing in several places (e.g. item 4).

The strength of the study is that the model presented by them enables the formalization and identification of factors affecting the sustainability of transport in order to promote it, so that it becomes possible to make decisions, through which the emission of greenhouse gases and the reduction of air pollution will become more effective in the future than at present.

The weakness of the article, on the other hand, is that it does not address the issue of multicollinearity in models at all. In empirical analyses, however, it is a common case that not all data carry useful content from the point of view of the investigation, i.e. the data set is redundant. This phenomenon can be explained by multicollinearity. There are many ways to recognize and measure multicollinearity and to reduce the harmful consequences of this phenomenon.

The article as a whole contains, in addition to the large amount of processed information, although not completely new findings, they undoubtedly contain interesting and significant results for scientific theory. At the same time, the study in its current form is too sophisticated for practice, it includes many concepts and methods that are little known and difficult or impossible to understand for decision-makers operating in any settlement.

Author Response

Reply to Reviewers of Manuscript “ID: sustainability-2040025-R2”

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have chosen a current topic that corresponds to the objectives of the journal, which can be discussed within the scope of an article. The authors proved that they are able to organize their study logically and organize it around a well-structured train of thought. Also, they are able to express themselves grammatically correctly and fluently, they use the established terms of their field accurately and consciously. The text of the article meets the stylistic requirements for the prose of a scientific lecture. The authors' style is sufficiently professional, but at the same time understandable.

Reply:

Many thanks for your positive comment.  

 

The appearance of the authors' work is organized and clear, but at the same time, there are a minimal number of figures and tables. There are no confusing typos or other errors in the text of the study. Except for one case, on page 10 of the article, the numbering of one subsection is not 3.3.3 SFS-MARCOS, but 3.2.3 SFS-MARCOS. The study testifies that the authors tried to fully process the knowledge and documents related to their chosen topic.

Reply:

Thanks for your helpful comments and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of this paper. The indicated section was also modified.

 

The literature used for the topic of the article is voluminous and topic specific. The list of used literature is synchronized with the references in the text, the same amount of literature is included in the list of references as is indicated in the text. In the bibliography used, however, the complete page numbers of some used books are missing in several places (e.g. item 4).

Reply:

Thanks for your precise review. That’s very kind of you. Authors tried to add page numbers of used books in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

The strength of the study is that the model presented by them enables the formalization and identification of factors affecting the sustainability of transport in order to promote it, so that it becomes possible to make decisions, through which the emission of greenhouse gases and the reduction of air pollution will become more effective in the future than at present.

Reply:

Thank you for your precise review, we appreciate your encouragement.

 

The weakness of the article, on the other hand, is that it does not address the issue of multicollinearity in models at all. In empirical analyses, however, it is a common case that not all data carry useful content from the point of view of the investigation, i.e. the data set is redundant. This phenomenon can be explained by multicollinearity. There are many ways to recognize and measure multicollinearity and to reduce the harmful consequences of this phenomenon.

Reply:

In this article, MCDM methods are used for weighting and ranking options. Specifically, SWARA for weighting the criteria, and MARCOS for ranking the options. Also, in order to deal with uncertainty, the spherical fuzzy concept has been used.

 

The article as a whole contains, in addition to the large amount of processed information, although not completely new findings, they undoubtedly contain interesting and significant results for scientific theory. At the same time, the study in its current form is too sophisticated for practice, it includes many concepts and methods that are little known and difficult or impossible to understand for decision-makers operating in any settlement.

Reply:

Thank you for your support, guidance and encouragement.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 8 Report

The revised version of the manuscript considerably addressed the comments from original submissions. The following are additional suggestions to further improve the manuscript.

1. The Discussion of results (Section 4.4) must be improved. This should highlight the novelty of the findings relative to existing studies applied other MDCM. The policy suggestion should also be discussed based from the main findings and not just a statement/conclusion. The policy recommendations may include energy, environmental, and transport policies.

2. There is a disconnection between the Title and the content of the paper. I expected that the findings of the study would to "address climate change". However, the study only presented the results of the MCDM. I suggest to separate Section 4.4 into a separate section dedicated only to Discussion. This will include the discussion of the main findings and policy implications in comment #1, as well as the discussion related to addressing climate change and sustainable passenger transportation system.

3. English editing is recommended. This will include the checking of grammar, spacing, capitalizations, and formatting.

4. Do not cut the words in the table.

Author Response

Reply to Reviewers of Manuscript “ID: sustainability-2040025-R2”

We would like to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the valuable points and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Reply to Reviewer

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revised version of the manuscript considerably addressed the comments from original submissions. The following are additional suggestions to further improve the manuscript.

Thanks for your helpful comments and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of this paper.

1. The Discussion of results (Section 4.4) must be improved. This should highlight the novelty of the findings relative to existing studies applied other MDCM. The policy suggestion should also be discussed based from the main findings and not just a statement/conclusion. The policy recommendations may include energy, environmental, and transport policies.

Reply:

According to your completely correct and valuable comment, section 4.4 was added. In this section, the advantages and innovations of the article were first discussed, then the political consequences and discussion of the topic were done.

 

2. There is a disconnection between the Title and the content of the paper. I expected that the findings of the study would to "address climate change". However, the study only presented the results of the MCDM. I suggest to separate Section 4.4 into a separate section dedicated only to Discussion. This will include the discussion of the main findings and policy implications in comment #1, as well as the discussion related to addressing climate change and sustainable passenger transportation system.

Reply:

According to your valuable comment, follows description has been added as section 4.4:

“4.4. Discussion and Policy Suggestions

         Transportation is one of the inevitable necessities of every human society that causes dynamism, economic and social development. Sustainable development in general and sustainable transportation in particular, is in search of finding a balance between environmental, social and economic qualities in the present and future (in the field of transportation facilities); In fact, the planning and design of sustainable transportation seeks to find solutions to reduce complications in different sectors. Many experts consider and believe that due to the importance of transportation in the economy, industry, politics, and even military sectors, it is the foundation of sustainable development. The more efficient the transportation, the more inclusive the development as a result; In other words, every move should be the most efficient in terms of cost-benefit and compatibility with the environment. The role of sustainable transportation in sustainable development in relation to factors such as public welfare, national economy, environment and social effects. Therefore, the selection of transportation systems that are compatible with the optimal consumption of fuel and available energy and environmental conditions is the first priority of sustainable development. Therefore, having a dynamic, coordinated and organized transportation network is one of the main criteria for measuring the development of societies. Based on this, a society that has a more efficient transportation network will benefit from a more comprehensive development.

The purpose of decision-making is to choose the best option, strategy and alternative or weight the factors involved in decision-making. Some decisions are very simple, but in the real world such decisions are very few, that's why it requires a powerful method that can measure each option based on different criteria. Also, in order to deal with the uncertainty in the opinions of experts, MCDM methods have been developed in the SFS. The SFS is developed of Pythagorean and intuitionistic fuzzy sets, which, unlike other fuzzy sets, has three degrees of membership, non-membership, and degree of doubt, which are defined independently of each other, and the membership functions are generalized on a spherical surface. they find Hence, this set gives more freedom to decision makers. Based on the results obtained from the developed approach, compared with other decision-making methods and sensitivity analysis, it is observed that the obtained results are reliable and stable. According to the results of the proposed approach, autonomous vehicles are suitable vehicle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Tehran transportation system. So, the municipality of Tehran, can improve the situation of the Tehran air pollution with smart investment.”

 

3. English editing is recommended. This will include the checking of grammar, spacing, capitalizations, and formatting.

Reply:

Thanks for your comment, a native modified the paper in terms of English language.

 

4. Do not cut the words in the table.

Reply:

According to your constructive comment, the tables have been modified in the revised version of the manuscript.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors carefully made the corrections. I am happy with this version. The paper can be published. Best.

Author Response

The authors carefully made the corrections. I am happy with this version. The paper can be published. Best

Reply:

Thanks for your helpful comments and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of this paper.

Reviewer 6 Report

Many of revisions are not acceptable.

Author Response

We have revised our paper accordingly by your previous comments and feel that your comments helped clarify and improve our paper. The authors would like to thank you for your time and effort. Due to your suggestion, in the first step, we edited the sentences by premium Grammarly. Then, we sent this manuscript to a Professor at Worcester Polytechnic University for editing English level. The English level of the manuscript is increased over the previous version, eliminated mistakes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf