Research on Express Crowdsourcing Task Allocation Considering Distribution Mode under Customer Classification
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe clarity of the paper could be significantly enhanced, particularly in the abstract. Key terms such as CCGA should be explicitly defined at their first mention to ensure accessibility for all readers.
The literature review appears overly extensive. A more concise approach, focusing only on directly relevant studies, would improve readability and maintain the reader's focus.
The presentation of results needs to be streamlined. Specifically, Table 5 contains excessive details which could be summarized to highlight only the critical data, improving the ease of comprehension.
It is crucial to demonstrate how the assumptions used align with real-world traffic conditions. Clarification on the methods used to validate these assumptions would strengthen the reliability of the study.
The paper should better articulate the practical applications of the findings. Understanding the potential real-world uses of this research will enhance its value to the field.
Some recent and relevant studies should be discussed. See: Multi‐Depot Pickup and Delivery Problem with Resource Sharing. Journal of Advanced Transportation, 2021(1), 5182989. Integrated travel demand and accessibility model to examine the impact of new infrastructures using travel behavior responses
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageNone
Author Response
Q1 The clarity of the paper could be significantly enhanced, particularly in the abstract. Key terms such as CCGA should be explicitly defined at their first mention to ensure accessibility for all readers.
Response1：The abstract section has been revised, the logic has been reorganized, and a clear explanation of the CCGA algorithm has been provided(Page 1 Line12-13)
Q2 The literature review appears overly extensive. A more concise approach, focusing only on directly relevant studies, would improve readability and maintain the reader's focus.
Response2：After modification, only the literature review closely related to the content of this article is left, and the excess has been removed
Q3 The presentation of results needs to be streamlined. Specifically, Table 5 contains excessive details which could be summarized to highlight only the critical data, improving the ease of comprehension.
Response3：The task delivery mode in Table 5 of the original manuscript has been reflected in the main text, with one column removed from Table 5. Please refer to Table 7 in the revised appendix of the paper for details(Page 21-22)
Q4 It is crucial to demonstrate how the assumptions used align with real-world traffic conditions. Clarification on the methods used to validate these assumptions would strengthen the reliability of the study.
Response4：I completely agree with the assumption mentioned by the editor that it should be consistent with the actual traffic conditions. I will explain these assumptions in the paper. Below, I will provide specific explanations for these assumptions .Assumption 1: The information of the express crowdsourcing task should be known to the crowdsourcing platform and consistent with reality. Assumption 2: Considering the crowdsourcing nature of delivery personnel, they do not wait for tasks at the distribution center, but instead deliver from their actual location. Moreover, this study has multiple distribution centers and cannot determine which one to wait for tasks at. Therefore, crowdsourced delivery personnel start delivering from their actual location. Assumption 3: Each task is only delivered by one deliveryman, which does not cause resource waste or conflict, and one deliveryman can deliver multiple tasks, which is consistent with reality. Assumption 4: Although it is difficult to achieve the same and constant speed of delivery personnel in real life, the speed of delivery vehicles is roughly the same in practice due to the same delivery equipment, and is not within the scope of this article due to the influence of traffic conditions. Assumption: 5 crowdsourcing tasks are generally reasonable, and crowdsourced delivery personnel generally do not refuse, and the number of rejections will affect the performance evaluation of delivery personnel, which is consistent with reality. Assumption 6: The actions of the delivery person picking up the goods at the distribution center, delivering them to the door, and delivering them to the express station are consistent, so the service time is the same and consistent with the actual situation. Assumption 7: For crowdsourcing platforms, arriving early or late incurs manpower and time losses, as well as reduces customer satisfaction. Therefore, this article sets opportunity costs and penalty costs. Assumption 8: As an informal employee, the crowdsourced delivery personnel do not need to return to the distribution center after completing the delivery task, which is consistent with reality.( Page 8 Line4-26)
Q5 The paper should better articulate the practical applications of the findings. Understanding the potential real-world uses of this research will enhance its value to the field.
Response5：In response to the editor's suggestion that research should better clarify its practical application and value, the author has pointed out the drawbacks of current express delivery in the introduction section. Based on the newly revised "Express Delivery Market Management Measures" on March 1, 2024, which stipulate the phenomenon of "delivery without notification" in express delivery, the policy of not receiving packages on behalf of customers without their consent and not delivering packages to intelligent express delivery boxes, express delivery service stations and other end of service facilities is analyzed. In reality, there are indeed situations where delivery personnel need to call each customer to inquire, resulting in high time costs or inability to contact customers. Especially in the crowdsourcing environment, the lack of professional training for crowdsourcing delivery personnel can easily overlook customer needs and lead to arbitrary work. And this study has made improvements to this, allowing customers to choose two different delivery methods when placing orders. And in the conclusion, it was summarized that this study can reduce the cost of crowdsourcing platforms and meet the different delivery mode requirements of customers, solving the practical drawbacks.( Page 2 Line22-32、Page 18 Line29- Page 19Line4)
Q6 Some recent and relevant studies should be discussed. See: Multi‐Depot Pickup and Delivery Problem with Resource Sharing. Journal of Advanced Transportation, 2021(1), 5182989. Integrated travel demand and accessibility model to examine the impact of new infrastructures using travel behavior responses
Response6：Added a discussion on relevant research in the past two years in the literature review section(Page 4 Line26-35)
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper presents a comprehensive study on express crowdsourcing task allocation, focusing on the optimization of distribution modes under customer classification. Detail comments please reference attached World file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The quality of the English language in the manuscript needs to be improved.
Author Response
This paper presents a comprehensive study on express crowdsourcing taskallocation, focusing on the optimization of distribution modes under customerclassification. Following are the detail comments.
Comments 1 Please add line numbers to the document to facilitate easier commenting andreference.
Response1：Corresponding line numbers have been added to the paper
Comments 2. The placement of reference citation numbers is inconsistent-—sometimes theyappear before the year, and sometimes after (e.g., [4] and [7]). Please ensureconsistency and adhere to the journal's citation requirements.
Response2：The reference citation numbers have been placed after the year, (Page 2 Line12,Page 3 Line10)
Comments 3. In the Introduction section, the sentence "Many scholars have studied the feasibilityof crowdsourcing distribution" should be preceded by a summary of existingresearch findings related to the challenges faced by crowdsourcing logistics. This will create a smoother flow and better connect the paragraphs.
Response3：In the introduction section, the paragraph where the sentence "Many scholars have studied the feasibility of crowdsourcing delivery" is located has been reorganized. (Page 1 Line33-
Page 2 Line7)
Comments 4. The Introduction lacks a clear identification of the research gap that this study aimsto address. Please clarify the gap that led to the development of your research.
Response4：The introduction section has added the gap between existing research and this study, as well as the improvements made in this study.( Page 2 Line12-25)
Comments 5. In the Literature Review, consider organizing the content under second-levelheadings (e.g., 2.1) following the first-level headings to improve structure andreadability.
Response5：The corresponding secondary title has been added to this paper.( Page 3 Line7、Line19、 Page 4Line9、Line38)
Comments 6. Although the literature review is extensive, it lacks critical analysis. It does notclearly differentiate between the contributions of this paper and previous studies. There is also no discussion on the limitations of previous works and how this studyaims to address them.
Response6：The literature review has added discussions on the limitations of previous work and how this study aims to address these issues.( Page 4 Line26- 35)
comments 7. The resolution of all figures needs improvement, particularly Figures 7 and 8.
Response7：All graphic resolutions have been improved, and figures 7 and 8 in the manuscript have been replaced.( Page 13 Line15- 23)
Comments 8. In Figures 2 and 3, the font sizes on the X-axis and Y-axis are inconsistent. Thesame issue is present in Figures 9 and 11. Please ensure uniformity.
Response 8：The font size of the x-axis and y-axis in the image has been standardized. Please refer to Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 10, and Figure 11 of the revised paper for details.( Page 7 Line3-9 Page 16 Line 7\Page 17 Line 3)
Comments 9. In Section 3.1, where you discuss assumptions, consider addressing the potentiallimitations these assumptions might introduce to the study's findings.
Response9：These assumptions are all made in real life, and I will explain them in the paper to facilitate readers' understanding of the research background. Below, I will explain these assumptions：Assumption 1: The information of the express crowdsourcing task should be known to the crowdsourcing platform and consistent with reality. Assumption 2: Considering the crowdsourcing nature of delivery personnel, they do not wait for tasks at the distribution center, but instead deliver from their actual location. Moreover, this study has multiple distribution centers and cannot determine which one to wait for tasks at. Therefore, crowdsourced delivery personnel start delivering from their actual location. Assumption 3: Each task is only delivered by one deliveryman, which does not cause resource waste or conflict, and one deliveryman can deliver multiple tasks, which is consistent with reality. Assumption 4: Although it is difficult to achieve the same and constant speed of delivery personnel in real life, the speed of delivery vehicles is roughly the same in practice due to the same delivery equipment, and is not within the scope of this article due to the influence of traffic conditions. Assumption: 5 crowdsourcing tasks are generally reasonable, and crowdsourced delivery personnel generally do not refuse, and the number of rejections will affect the performance evaluation of delivery personnel, which is consistent with reality. Assumption 6: The actions of the delivery person picking up the goods at the distribution center, delivering them to the door, and delivering them to the express station are consistent, so the service time is the same and consistent with the actual situation. Assumption 7: For crowdsourcing platforms, arriving early or late incurs manpower and time losses, as well as reduces customer satisfaction. Therefore, this article sets opportunity costs and penalty costs. Assumption 8: As an informal employee, the crowdsourced delivery personnel do not need to return to the distribution center after completing the delivery task, which is consistent with reality.( Page 8 Line4-26)
Comments 10. In Figure 4, the font size within the flowchart is too small to read. Considerincreasing the font size and adding more annotations for clarity.
Response10：The flowchart has been improved.( Page 12 Line 11)
Comments 11. The methodology section adequately describes the experimental setup, but thecomparison with other algorithms, such as STWGA, could be strengthened byproviding more details on experimental conditions, such as the number of iterations,computational resources used, and any variations in results across different runs.
Response11：The suggestion put forward by the editor to increase parameter sensitivity discussion is very rigorous, but the actual scenario parameters considered in this article will be more in line with reality. For example, the termination iteration number G set in this article is 500. In the experiment, if G is less than 500, the experimental results will be inaccurate, and if it is more than 500, the experimental time will increase, and the experimental results will not improve much. Therefore, the termination iteration number G set in this article is 500. The vehicle's driving speed is 30km/h, which takes into account the standard driving speed of vehicles in real delivery and better fits the real-life scenario. If the speed is too fast, the time window will become meaningless, increasing opportunity costs. If it is too slow, it will incur penalty costs, which are huge for efficient customers. Therefore, if the speed is too fast or too slow, the time windows set for different customers will not achieve the research effect. If there are precise requirements in the future, sensitivity discussions can be conducted on all these parameters.
Comments 12. Figure 5 is quite long. Consider moving it to the appendix to maintain the flow ofthe main text.
Response12：The very long tables has been moved to the appendix(Page 20- Page 22)
Q 13. In Section 6, it would be beneficial to discuss how the results could be applied toreal-world scenarios. For example,providing a case study of how the CCGAalgorithm might be implemented in a real logistics problem, and comparing thoseresults with your simulation findings,could add more depth to your analysis.
Response13：In response to this suggestion, I believe it is an important step in applying theoretical research to real life. However, given that the crowdsourcing express delivery industry is still an emerging industry and there is no well-established crowdsourcing platform, it is still difficult to implement this research in practical scenarios at this stage. With the development of the express delivery industry and technology, I will definitely apply this research to real-life scenarios and compare it with the results of this study.
Comments 14. Before the References section, please include a statement on the authors'contributions and any conflicts of interest.
Response14：A statement regarding the author's contributions and any conflicts of interest has been added before the references section.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. In Manuscript 2, the x-axis and y-axis in Figures 9 and 10 have been altered from Manuscript 1. Please provide an explanation for this change.
2. The paragraph under Figure 10 needs to be left-aligned to maintain consistent formatting.
Author Response
Comments1：In Manuscript 2, the x-axis and y-axis in Figures 9 and 10 have been altered from Manuscript 1. Please provide an explanation for this change.
Response1：The reason why Figures 9 and 10 are different is that the original model has been modified and the model has been rerun. So the Figures is different.
Comments2. The paragraph under Figure 10 needs to be left-aligned to maintain consistent formatting.
Response2：The format of the corresponding paragraph has been adjusted.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
