LSTM-Based Transformer for Transfer Passenger Flow Forecasting between Transportation Integrated Hubs in Urban Agglomeration

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study investigates the effect of the LSTM-Based transformer prediction model to estimate short-term transfer passengers between two integrated hubs in an urban agglomeration and a long short-term memory network to incorporate previous historical data.  Although the results attained in the present study show the importance of the paper, The authors should address the following comments:

 

1. Passenger forecasting is an important issue in the field of transportation. Many different methods such as artificial intelligence and machine learning have applications in this field. It is necessary to expand the literature review and emphasize the importance of the subject. Passenger forecasting related publications some of which are listed as following:

 

10.1109/SBRN.2002.1181440

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2014.03.004

https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.6263

 

 

2. The results in the paper might be more discussed by the relevant literature.
3. Similar works have been conducted previously and a comparison of the model performance should be presented between the obtained model in this manuscript vs. the previous models in assessment of passenger forecasting.
4. Throughout the text, there are some typos that must be eliminated.
5. The conclusion part seems to be more like an experimental report rather than a scientific paper. I strongly suggest for authors present their conclusions more concisely, avoiding repetition of the obvious and simple results.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

some of my comments are listed as follow.

 

1.     The abstract is too lengthy and confusing; it needs a revision and makes it more appropriate to the journal standard.

2.     The introduction needs to be revised to present the main idea in a simple way. For example, what is the research gap, and why is the study conducted?

3.     The literature review is not organized and lacks a systemic presentation.

4.     Methods need to revise and made simpler and more accessible for the readers.

5.     The results section is well written.

6.     Need more helpful policy implications and research limitations.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript presents an interesting method to predict the passengers flow between the airport and railway station in a very big agglomeration. It is well-written and correctly constructed in general. However, I indicated some problems to solve before the acceptance.

Is this research dedicated to forecasting passenger numbers or transfer time? I think the subject of the model is passenger flow (or their number or volume). This should be clarified in the title of the paper, in the abstract, in keywords, and in the introduction.

I did not find discussions about the literature sources [1] and [2] in the text.

Row 205, “in Cho's 2014 proposal”, this source is not considered in the references list.

Considering the above, the whole list of references and their numbers should be checked.

Improve the division of the sections into subsections. When the section contains subsections, this should be used consequently. So, do not start the section without subsections, for example, section 3 should start with subsection 3.1 with an appropriate title, and present subsection 3.1 should be renumbered into 3.2, as well as the next subsections. A similar remark concerns section 4 and its divisions.

Subsection 4.1:

The map with the location of the airport and railway station on the agglomeration range will be nice.

From which year came the presented data? For example, “With an average yearly passenger flow of over 100 million, Beijing Capital International Airport ranks first in Asia and second worldwide” concern the year 2019. In 2020 and 2021 these amounts are very lower. This is of course an effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, but this aspect must be clarified in the paper.

Does the sentence "annual passenger flow of around 150 million" make sense? When and under what conditions will this happen?

Figure 4, please describe the axes on this chart. (And the same remark to figures 7b, and 8b).

How has the Covid-19 pandemic influenced the passenger flow between the airport and railway station? Which restrictions were used at the time of observations (May 2021)? Were these restrictions disrupting the results? It is a need to repeat the research after the pandemic?

Section 5 contains more conclusions, so the plural form in the title of the section will be better.

 

I identified some technical problems (the wrong style in figure captions, for example, fig 1, lack of spacing, rows 36, 37, 38 or double spacing, row 91, etc.). Please correct these carefully.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In the revised version of the manuscript, the authors have attempted the suggested changes.

Author Response

Once again, we want to thank you for your advice and comments regarding our study as well as your approval of our adjustments.

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors satisfactory considered almost all my remarks. One, an unaccounted remark was:

The map with the location of the airport and railway station on the agglomeration range will be nice.

Unfortunately, this question was not commented on by the Authors. I don’t know what the reason is for not including a map.

I my opinion the map will well illustrate the case study area. I strongly recommend adding the map.

For this reason, I still conclude my review of this manuscript as a “major revision”.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx