Travel Plan Sharing and Regulation for Managing Traffic Bottleneck Based on Blockchain Technology
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors This paper proposes a traffic bottleneck management system to alleviate congestion of traffic bottlenecks. The system is based on travel plans shared by travelers, which improves the accuracy of traffic demand prediction; By using blockchain technology, the data privacy and information security issues have been solved; This system has good practical value. Some questions about this paper are as follows: 1.The positions of dynamic traveler information and static traveler information in Figure 2 are incorrect. please modify it. 2.The method for predicting traffic flow is not provided with an accurate answer in the paper. Please provide relevant references. 3.Why not consider different length of time interval when conducting experiments on regulation model for some travelers willing to share their travel plans.4.The content mentioned in the paper regarding limitations of study is insufficient and needs to be supplemented. Comments on the Quality of English Language
Good
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsTitle: The title of the is too long. Please try to shorten it, if it is possible.
Abstract: The abstract is missing the limitations of the study.
Introduction: The introduction is very well written, giving the reader a clear picture and background of the problem.
This paper deals with one bottleneck, but the urban city network is a network problem with many bottlenecks, and if you remove some travelers from one bottleneck they will form bottlenecks elsewhere on the network. What happens with cases where demand is greater than the capacity of the bottleneck? Did travelers only shift their time at the start of the journey? Can they change their route of travel, mode of travel, etc? Did the researcher include this in the paper?
Literature review: The literature review is very well structured in 3 parts, covering all aspects of congestion on bottlenecks and the application of the blockchain methodology.
Case Study:
This chapter cannot start with a figure please put figure 5 after the first text paragraph.
line 366 “Thus, the capacity is set to 3333 vehicles per hour. “ This estimation of capacity is incorrect. Capacity can be calculated per each traffic lane. Since this bridge has 6 traffic lanes, the capacity will approximately be 6*2200vph to 2400vph =13.000 to 14.500vph. Please see HCM manual for a precise calculation of capacity.
“Figure 7. Selected traffic flow data for 24 time intervals.” Does this number of arriving vehicles come from traffic automatic counters or shred data from the proposed platform in this paper?
Figure 9. shows the number of vehicles transferred from each time interval to other time intervals. This number of transferred vehicles is huge. How much their travel is delayed? Does this mean that they need to shift their start of traveling? This Model needs a better description to better understand how it works.
Conclusions: The limitations of the study are not very well described. For example, some travel cannot be shared.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe title of the manuscript is “Travel Plan Sharing and Regulation for Traffic Bottleneck Congestion Management based on Blockchain Technology”, but it does not clearly explain how to use blockchain to alleviate congestion at traffic bottlenecks.This article lacks sufficient innovation points. This manuscript does not meet the requirements of the journal. It is recommended to turn to other journals. Meanwhile, this manuscript also has the following errors or issues.
Comments:
1. The first letter of each keyword in the keyword section should be capitalized for more standardized writing.
2. The title of the diagram should be centered, for example, Figure 1: The workflow of the system.
3. On page 12 of the article, the meaning of the coordinate axis in Figure 9 is not clearly described, and the text describing the image does not explain the meaning of the image clearly.
4. On page 13 of the article, line 429 mentions that “ the delay rate decreases in each time interval ” ,but in the Figure 10, it is evident that not every time interval has a decrease in delay rate after regulation.
5. In the case study section, it is not explained clearly how to obtain data from tables or images.
6. The title of the article is “Travel Plan Sharing and Regulation for Traffic Bottleneck Congestion Management based on Blockchain Technology”, but it does not clearly explain how to use blockchain for data privacy protection. This article only briefly proposes combining traffic bottleneck congestion management with blockchain technology.
7. In Figure 1, if the operational level of the bottleneck is unacceptable, the step pointed to is to optimize the travel plans, but this optimization step is not the responsibility of the smart contracts.
Further improvement is needed in the workflow of the system.
8. The meaning of Figure 3 is unclear. The purpose of each layer of the platform, and how data is exchanged between layers to achieve the platform's goals are not explained clearly. At the same time, the types of data structures in the layers are chaotic.
9. There is an extra line of space in the last line of the Reference(line 627).
10. The article lacks innovation points. In this article, the author only expressed to us the need to obtain the minimum value of the total number of transferred vehicles, and did not include any more innovative points.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPage 1, Keywords: My suggestion is to include “Travel demand” in the keywords.
Page 3, line 136, “…for autonomous vehicles [25-29].”: My suggestion is to add more text in your manuscript which will be associated with the specific five references, for the benefit of the reader.
Page 4, line 163, “…carpooling behavior and parking restrictions [48-54]”: My suggestion is to add more text in your manuscript which will be associated with the specific seven references, for the benefit of the reader.
Page 5, lines 205-207, :…First, travelers share their travel plans through the system before traveling, informing the system of the time they plan to arrive at the bottleneck…”: I am not so sure how feasible/realistic for a driver is to submit such an information “before traveling”, despite the incentives (page 6, lines 219-221). I kindly ask you to include within your manuscript respective references from the literature, to show that drivers react positively to such initiatives and respond properly.
Please check the numbering of your equations (from (6f) on page 10 to (17) on page 11.
Please include with your manuscript the geometrical and functional characteristics of the Su-Tong Yangtze River Highway Bridge (e.g., number of lanes per direction, lane width etc.).
The designed capacity of the Bridge is 80000 vehicles per day (page 11, line 366). The hourly capacity is set to 3333 vehicles per hour (page 11, line 366). Please note that 3333 vehicles x 24 hours = 79992 vehicles. So, please write “The designed capacity of the Bridge is about 80000 vehicles per day”.
Please include within your manuscript the peak hour traffic for the Bridge, if possible.
Figure 7. Selected traffic flow data for 24 time intervals.: It seems that the number of vehicles exceeds the capacity of 3333 vehicles per hour in some cases (time intervals). Please explain these values using the ratio V/C (Volume to Capacity ratio).
The paper lacks a Discussion Section where you should discuss your valuable findings vs the findings of other, similar, case studies worldwide where travel demand prediction for traffic bottlenecks was based on travel behavior assumptions.
Section 6. Conclusions: Please include your policy recommendations arising from your valuable findings and then address each one to the respective stakeholder(s) (who and how will benefit from your valuable findings, e.g., transport authorities, drivers, local authorities, town planners etc.). Please carry out a stakeholders’ analysis to identify the stakeholders.
Section 6. Conclusions: Since your paper was submitted to “Sustainability”, it is important to point out within your manuscript which is the contribution of your work to the three (3) pillars of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic).
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThanks for the answers. I have no additional requests
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsNone
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI would like to express my deepest thanks to the authors because they have carefully addressed my comments.
