Public Transport Usage and Perceived Service Quality in a Large Metropolitan Area: The Case of Porto

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The authors' abstract provides a relatively concise summary of the purpose, research methods, and conclusions of the full article, but the potential value of the study is not very clear, and a more detailed summary of the contributions made by the study is needed.

2. The authors describe the background of the study in more detail in the introduction section, mentioning that the government encourages public transportation and that those involved want to understand the key factors affecting the quality of public transportation services, but the article does not answer the question.

3. The article is relatively compact, but it lacks a statement of the research question and the area to which the study applies.

4. Figures 1 and 2 in Section 3 do not express the author's meaning very clearly, so please explain the role of the horizontal coordinates in more detail.

5.Adequate analysis of the results is necessary for the reader to get relevant insights. It is recommended that the experimental design and analysis of the article be more fulsome, and the conclusion should include an insightful summary of the whole article and future research directions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review my document. I am pleased to inform you that I have incorporated the suggested corrections into the revised version, which is attached for your further review.

Best regards,

Hudyeron Rocha

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This study investigated the relationship between public transport usage and perceived service quality based on a 2017 mobility survey in the Porto Metropolitan Area. However, it focused largely summarizing factors for whether residents use public transport but did not highlight the contribution of this study.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review my document. I am pleased to inform you that I have incorporated the suggested corrections into the revised version, which is attached for your further review.

Best regards,

Hudyeron Rocha

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Public Transport Attitudinal Survey Porto

Aim

This study aims to understand the attitudes and opinions toward public transport also the modal  choices of households in the Porto area of Portugal,  based on the most recent mobility survey that was conducted in Portugal in 2017. 

Methodology

A literature review followed by application of binary logit model and linear regression analysis. Statistical interpretation of the models and an interpretation of the results.

Evaluation

The introduction contains a literature review of car dependent cities and previous studies of attitudes to public transport. Whilst the topic of the paper and the statistical methods are not news (similar such investigations were conducted more than 50 years ago, the methodology, data and modelling are clearly explained. The results from the models are presented in tabular form. The discussion is appropriate and the findings are contrasted with results from the international literature.

References appear with errors except that [53] should start Hensher, D. A….

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review our document. I am pleased to inform you that I have incorporated the suggested corrections into the revised version, 

Best regards,

Hudyeron Rocha

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Very glad to review this paper (sustainability-2247535). Thanks for your waiting. This paper proposes a cross-examination between a binary and an ordinal logit model to analyze what incentives and improvements should be taken to attract and retain more passengers. This paper has made great efforts in data collection and research. Through data statistics and regression testing, it has important reference significance for the improvement of public transport in PMA or other metropolitan regions. However, some parts need to be improved to help readers better understand this paper. Of course, you can check the file (PDF) as the same.

Main problems:
In Abstract:

i.              Although you introduced the research results in Abstract, it should have been more specific. I see you introduced various results including percentages in the analysis of L243-L307, which should be mentioned in Abstract.

In Data and Methods:

ii.              I doubt what is the basis for the five categories of income (M_Income) and expense (TP_Expense and T_Expense) in Table 1? Similarly, in L163, how is this scale determined?

iii.              In L195, should the symbol  be changed to ?

In Results:

iv.              As the three columns from Figure 1, are these the proportions of the top three important reasons that each respondent chooses from 16 potential reasons? If so, please explain clearer in the paper. What I care about is that the proportion of factors related to speed (R_Speed) in the three important orders could be almost the same?

v.              In L238 and L275, the serial numbers of the two tables are incorrect.

vi.              What are the four indicators in the first row of Table 2 (L238)? Please explain in detail.

vii.              I am not sure about the accuracy of the regression analysis in Table 2 (L238), is the 1.7 times here accurate? Is the relationship between the likelihood of using PT and all other reasons represented/described by the formulas?

In Discussion and Conclusion:

 

viii.              The discussion in Section 4 could be integrated with the results in Section 3, which are currently a bit too lengthy. In the summary, you could introduce the background of the paper's research, the methods used, highlight the results obtained, and try to keep it concise.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review my document. I am pleased to inform you that I have incorporated the suggested corrections into the revised version, which is attached for your further review.

Best regards,

Hudyeron Rocha

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

The authors propose a cross-examination method between a binary and an ordinal logit model to tackle the relation between PT usage and PSQ at a household. The findings show that the tendency to use PT is not always related to PT satisfaction, which varies at various levels, including household characteristics and municipality location. This is pretty impressive. Moreover, novelty or contribution is very well presented in the Introduction section.

However, compared with other related work, the author's contributions and differences are not well reflected. The author needs to highlight the contribution of the current article. Also, a thorough read is required to avoid any typos and linguistic errors. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review my document. I am pleased to inform you that I have incorporated the suggested corrections into the revised version, which is attached for your further review.

Best regards,

Hudyeron Rocha

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The innovation of the article is insufficient, and the specific contribution to the improvement of service quality in large urban areas is not clear. How will the strategies proposed in the paper contribute to reducing environmental impact and reducing traffic congestion？What is the new technology in the strategy？

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for providing us again with valuable feedback on our manuscript. We have carefully reviewed your comments and have made the necessary revisions to improve the quality of our work. We have attached the responses for your review, and we hope that our changes have addressed your concerns.

Once again, we would like to express our gratitude for your guidance in this process.

Best regards,
Hudyeron Rocha

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This revised version improves a lot based on the pervious comments. However, there are several further comments provided here.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your valuable feedback on our previous manuscript. We truly appreciate your time and effort to review our work and provide constructive comments.

We have carefully considered your comments and have made the necessary revisions to improve the quality of our manuscript. Please find attached the answers which address the concerns you raise.

Best regards,
Hudyeron Rocha

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Thanks for the authors’ revision (ID: sustainability-2247535) in the 2nd round. 

I am satisfied with the revision and responses. Please allow me to recommend an acceptable decision. 

The only concern is to remind the authors to check and improve the level of language further.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your feedback on the revised manuscript. We appreciate your positive assessment and recommendation for an acceptable decision.

We are fully aware that language quality plays a critical role in the effectiveness of scholarly communication, and we have taken this concern seriously. Accordingly, we have meticulously reviewed and improved the language used throughout the manuscript and hired a Professional Academic English Reviewer to proofread and improve the paper.

We have paid particular attention to eliminating any potential grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors and ensuring the language is clear and concise. Furthermore, we have incorporated appropriate academic terminology to enhance the clarity and precision of our research findings.

Once again, thank you for your valuable feedback, and we hope our revisions have addressed your concerns satisfactorily.

Sincerely,
Hudyeron Rocha

 

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

 What is the innovation on industry issues according the authors' work？ What is the new technology in the strategy？