Enhancing Pavement Sustainability: Prediction of the Pavement Condition Index in Arid Urban Climates Using the International Roughness Index

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper aimed to characterize the Enhancing Pavement Sustainability: Prediction of the Pavement Condition Index in Arid Urban Climates Using the International Roughness Index. However, this manuscript should be revised carefully before publication. My comments are listed in the following:

1. Page 1, line 22：Suggested enhancement of the back-to-back nature of the introductory section.

2. Page 2, line 125：It is recommended to cite more articles on roads and road conditions in the New Beni-Suef region, Egypt.

3. Page 3, line 165：Does the fixation of the study area to one region have any effect on the potential correlation between IRI and PCI?

4. Page 4, line 341： Predictions are unable to capture some values above the ICI, please explain why.

5. Page 5, line 358：In the previous section, IRI and PCI were studied in the New Beni-Suef region of Egypt, but here, modeled data from two regions, the United States and Canada, were chosen for comparison. Please explain.

6. Page 6, line 393：Suggest more citations of IRIs and PCIs for relevant roads in the country.

7. Please update the reference list using recently published papers (especially, JKCS in 2021-2024)

NO

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting study describing the relationship between the international roughness index (IRI) and the pavement condition index (PCI). The article is clearly and comprehensibly written and contains a sufficient number of cited references. The IRI values are obtained by a simple and inexpensive device made by the authors of the article. This can be a beneficial solution for transportation departments on limited budgets. On the other hand, there are verified and calibrated IRI measurement devices produced by reputable manufacturers. These should be preferentially used for IRI measurements.

I have a few questions and comments:

What is the source of image 2? Please provide a reference.

Would it be possible to describe the distresses collection implementation in more detail? How were the distresses identified?

Table 5 is divided into two pages.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

1.      Is it considered to add information about the Egyptian road data in the title of the article?

2.      There is too much blank space in Figure 1, and the values for each point are not very clear. Please make revisions.

3.      The research methodology section lacks detailed clarification on the data collection methods for IRI and PCI, staying more at a conceptual level description. However, acquiring these two sets of data is of significant importance to the study. Further supplementation is needed, such as including equipment parameters and vehicle speed control measures utilized during data collection.

4.      The article does not provide the main types of road surface defects in the study area, nor does it detail the severity of these defects.

5.      The assumptions and premises in the derivation of the formulas are not specific, and the applicability range and limitations of the model are overly broad.

6.      The definition of R^2 at line 273 is inaccurate. R^2 is used to measure the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that is explained by the independent variable, while the Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient is used to measure the degree of linear relationship between two variables. Although their numerical values may be the same, their meanings are not equivalent.

7.      The validation section has a small sample size (only 2 road segments), and these two road segments themselves are in relatively good conditions, thus lacking representativeness.

8.      Please carefully review the formatting of all tables and figures in your article to ensure their aesthetic appeal and readability. Also, check the clarity of the images, and note that the borders of your flowchart are incomplete.

 Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks to the authors for the serious response to the review comments. The manuscript was revised without issues.