A Max–Min Fairness-Inspired Approach to Enhance the Performance of Multimodal Transportation Networks
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsTransportation network optimizations represent one of the oldest researched problems whilst development of transportation networks and modalities introduced new paradigm of optimizing multimodal networks. Unfortunately, no matter how much actually this article actually does present novel methodology assuming reviewers cannot (at least not to full extent) reproduce mathematical model behind it, beside several minor issues, article has one major issue originating from Figure 3 (509) from which can be seen only 4 city interconnections are actually multimodal (and in the “center” of the network) whereas all other fall under single modality category. Therefore, no matter how accurate and valid theoretical model could be, demonstration network is inappropriate for it and sets second half of article under certain suspicions. This doesn’t mean single modal arcs cannot be optimized, but in that case, model in this article in contrast to article’s title does not represent a solution for multimodal network optimization.
Figures 5-8 depict certain changes but with no information provided about underlaying commodities which actually have a great impact on multimodal prioritization problem solving.
Another issue arises from the fact illustrative case study (chosen “multimodal” network) lacks a lot of information about how results were actually generated.
Minor issues include several repetitions of article’s purpose (174-177, 300-302, 360-363) and the fact Introduction chapter is actually similar to second chapter “Literature review”. Table 1. Seems not to be formatted according to template and there is no need to repeat word “Novelty” throughout every single column cell since it has been stated in table header.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions. Please see a detailed response to each in the attached document.
Kind regards,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors' article is devoted to an important and topical issue related to the study of increasing the efficiency of multimodal transport networks.
The transport industry contributes to the socio-economic development of the country and its regions, helps improve the quality of life of the population, ensuring the delivery of raw materials, components, equipment to the place of production and finished products within the country and abroad, as well as the transit of goods. The purpose of transport is to provide the national economy and population with transportation services to the maximum extent possible. If we consider transport services as a resource that is used by the entire national economic complex and the inhabitants of the country, then increasing the efficiency of the work of all spheres of the national economy largely depends on the quality, rationality and economy of transportation. Thus, the indicator of transport efficiency cannot be limited to the scheme of income minus costs, but should be assessed by a set of technical and economic indicators. The volume of cargo transportation is growing, therefore, it is necessary to increase the capacity of all types of transport and processes associated with transportation. Relevant tasks for the transport industry will be to increase capacity, reduce transportation time and cost, and improve other indicators of the quality of services provided. The consequence of this development of the industry is the receipt of additional income by all participants in the process. The transport strategy in many countries of the world is focused on the transformation and innovative development of the national transport system to meet the needs of the economy and society in their modern development for high-quality and competitive transport services. Such development is unthinkable without effective multimodal transport. The formulated goal of the transport strategy, which implies the integration of many countries into the global transport network and the expansion of access of various operators to the markets of other countries, will lead to the transformation of multimodal transport into a source of income from the export of services.
Based on the fairly high relevance and importance of the work performed, the results obtained will be useful for the analysis of specialists in this field.
However, there are the following issues that should be clarified:
1. In the introduction, attention should be paid to the issues of legal regulation of international multimodal transport as a fairly common type of transport at present, approved by the United Nations Convention. It should be noted that the main goal is a seamless and highly efficient exchange of data with minimal interaction between people in the supply chain and using United Nations standards and modern information tools.
2. The work should dwell in more detail on the advantages of using a linear programming model compared to other known methods for optimization purposes and explain why a dual-objective model structure is used?
3. In section “2. Literature Review” should provide more practical examples on the issue under consideration. Perhaps some of the information can be transferred to this section from section “1. Introduction".
4. It is advisable to use the formulas given in section “3. Max-Min Fairness Multimodal-Multicommodity Transportation Network Model" is presented in the form of an algorithm for which a patent for a software product could be obtained and used in similar research.
5. Was there a comparative analysis of the cargo and transport flows of Colombia considered in the work with the transport networks of other countries?
6. Is it possible to conduct a correlation analysis between the various sectors of the economy presented in Figure 4. This will allow us to most effectively consider various commodity flows.
7. Many similar drawings (Figures 5-8). They should be summarized and presented in one picture.
8. To increase the scientific and practical significance of the article, it would be necessary to provide mathematical models that allow the calculation and prediction of the output values under consideration during regression analysis.
9. A Discussion section should be added.
10. It is not entirely clear from the article on which objects it is planned to test the developed research methodology in the future. Are there any plans to file a patent for the developed algorithm?
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions. Please see a detailed response to each in the attached document.
Kind regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI found the paper to be interesting and written in a nice-to-read manner.
With all these, there are points needed to be further discussed/ explained as presented in the following:
- the content of Figure 2 it is not clear: in the bottom side it is written user - and this takes values from 0 to 4, while in the upper part there are various levels of satisfaction accompanied by three elements related to demand/allocation/difference - please better explain in words the particular example you are providing in Figure 2.
- in rows 367-371 it is written that: "The following table presents a structured overview of key aspects related to the resilience of multi-modal transportation networks in the face of disruptions. It identifies critical findings in existing literature and contrasts these with the gaps and contributions made by the current research. In particular, the table elucidates the novelty of utilizing a multicriteria mixed-integer linear programming (MCMILP) model for the exact resolution of Max-Min fairness problems in the supply chain." -- as it seems that the information in the table is built upon the existing literature please add the references that support the information provided in this table
- please discuss how you have validated your approach
- please discuss to which extend the proposed approach can be used in other similar situations with the one presented in the case study section
- please provide a discussing section at the end of the paper in which you compare your results with others from the field.
- please add a scheme for the steps considered in section 3, highlighting each time their purpose and expected results
Minor issues:
- please use the citation style recommended by the journal
- please remove the ":" from the name of the chapters/subchapters
- please avoid mentioning "following chart" - please use the name of the figure instead as it is confusing to which figure the authors are referring to
- please use the same / similar color scheme for the figures - e.g. Figure 1 is in black and white while Figure 2 is in colors.
- row 257 has two dots instead of one
- please use the table style indicated by the journal
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions. Please see a detailed response to each in the attached document.
Kind regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsMajor improvements have been implemented into article's structure which caused the article to become more meaningful and easier to comprehend. Although my personal/subjective remark regarding multimodal network(s) still hasn’t changed even though you have provided extensive explanation.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your valuable feedback. We hope that with the added explanations and discussions help clarify our perspectives and how the proposed work add value to the field. To provide additional discussion points aligned with this, we incorporated an additional comparative analysis with other fairness-based solution schemes (social welfare and Kalai-Somordisnky), that illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of using each, and showcases the usefulness and relevance of our proposed approach.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have made the necessary changes to the article. I recommend the article for publication.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your positive feedback on our manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI thank the authors for the revised version of the paper. I have no further comments either than please add references to all the equations that do not belong to the authors. Thank you!
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the provided feedback. We revised equations and updated their citations and text. Equations (1)-(54) were developed by the authors, Equation (55) cites Leclerc et al. (2012), Equation (56) cites Sheng (1991), and Equation (57) cites Kalai & Smorodisky (1975).
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI thank the authors for the revised version of the paper. I have no further comments either than please add references to all the equations that do not belong to the authors. Thank you!
