Simulation Modeling for Ships Entering and Leaving Port in Qiongzhou Strait Waters: A Multi-Agent Information Interaction Method

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It appears that the factors related to the pilot's
boarding and disembarking during the process of ships entering and
leaving the port have not been considered. We need to add how to address
this issue in the content. Additionally, can weather conditions be
incorporated into the simulation?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

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Author Response

Some comments of Review 1#

It appears that the factors related to the pilot's boarding and disembarking during the process of ships entering and leaving the port have not been considered. We need to add how to address this issue in the content. Additionally, can weather conditions be incorporated into the simulation?

Response: We greatly appreciate your suggestions. Regarding the two issues you raised, our considerations are as follows:

(1) Pilotage: The role of the pilot is crucial in the process of ships entering and exiting the port and must be incorporated into the simulation model. We observe that pilots usually board and disembark at anchorages or during the ship's voyage. We plan to dynamically adjust the states of the anchorage and ship agents based on the pilot's boarding and disembarking schedule. For instance, we will extend the ship’s waiting time at the anchorage according to the pilot boarding schedule. Additionally, during the boarding and disembarking process, ships may adjust their navigation and speed to facilitate pilot operations, which can be simulated by modifying the states of the ship agents. We appreciate your valuable input.

(2) Weather Conditions: We have included weather conditions as a necessary parameter in the simulation system. Each agent will update its state in real-time according to the weather conditions. Our investigation into the Qiongzhou Strait revealed that fog significantly impacts ship navigation. Therefore, in our port operation capability simulation, we have made specific provisions for foggy conditions, noting that ferries in the Qiongzhou Strait are suspended during fog, thus prohibiting port operations. Furthermore, ship movement is also influenced by wind, waves, and currents. We will incorporate a ship response model to analyze how weather affects ship navigation. We are currently working on refining this aspect of our model and again, we thank you for your insightful suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article deals with the simulation of the modelling of vessels when they enter, leave or are at berth, with a focus on the Chinese port of Xinhai, in the Qiongzhou strait. The article is interesting, and addresses a clear problem with clarity, providing valid results.

However, the article suffers from shortcomings that prevent it to be published in the current state.

Here is a list of comments:

The order of the names in the citation do not match the order of the authors in the paper. Also, two authors are co-first authors, why not order them according to the alphabetical order, as usual in this case?

The introduction does not meet the criteria of a good introduction. Authors are referred to by their first names, contrarily to custom, the use of singular and plural forms of the word “port” is not always correct, please check throughout the document, as well as verbal forms. This introduction looks more like a state-of-the-art review, and the related work section is more a list of other works than a constructed section. Please completely revise the first two sections.

Lines 218 to 225, please refer to ships and berths as ith ship and jth berth, respectively.

At the beginning of section 4, a map could be very helpful to better understand the whereabouts of this paper.

In table 3, why not use median tardiness instead of mean?

At the end of section 4, there is a lack of a proper discussion, that could help the reader to better understand how the authors position themselves with respect to the introduction and related works, highlighting their own contribution.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Not very good. Please improve the overall quality of English.

Author Response

Some comments of Review 2#

Comments 1: The order of the names in the citation do not match the order of the authors in the paper. Also, two authors are co-first authors, why not order them according to the alphabetical order, as usual in this case?

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. Based on your suggestion, we have made the following changes.

（1）We have corrected the author order in the citation as you advised.

（2）Thank you for your suggestion regarding the order of the co-first authors. However, the current order of the co-first authors is not based on alphabetical order because the two authors have contributed to the paper to different extents. The current order reflects the relative contributions of each author. We believe this arrangement is a more accurate representation of their efforts. We appreciate your understanding on this matter.

 

Comments 2: The introduction does not meet the criteria of a good introduction. Authors are referred to by their first names, contrarily to custom, the use of singular and plural forms of the word “port” is not always correct, please check throughout the document, as well as verbal forms. This introduction looks more like a state-of-the-art review, and the related work section is more a list of other works than a constructed section. Please completely revise the first two sections.

Response：Thank you for your valuable comments. Based on your suggestions, we have thoroughly revised the first two sections of the manuscript, combining related work and the introduction, and updated the references. Additionally, we have included a comparative analysis of current mainstream simulation models in the second section, leading into our work. All changes are highlighted. We appreciate your guidance.

Comments 3: Lines 218 to 225, please refer to ships and berths as ith ship and jth berth, respectively.

Response：Thank you for your suggestions. We have made the necessary corrections as advised, and all changes are highlighted. We appreciate your guidance.

Comments 4: At the beginning of section 4, a map could be very helpful to better understand the whereabouts of this paper.

Response：Thank you for your suggestions. Based on your advice, we have added relevant maps of the Qiongzhou Strait, including ship navigation routes and port layout, to Section 4. We have also clarified the simulation area. All changes are highlighted. We appreciate your input once again.

 

Comments 5: In table 3, why not use median tardiness instead of mean?

Response：Thank you for your suggestion. Following your advice, we have updated the tables in Section 4 to use median tardiness instead of mean tardiness. As you noted, median tardiness is more representative and better reflects the port's operational status. All changes are highlighted. We appreciate your feedback once again.

Comments 6: At the end of section 4, there is a lack of a proper discussion, that could help the reader to better understand how the authors position themselves with respect to the introduction and related works, highlighting their own contribution.

Response：Thank you for your suggestion. Based on your advice, we have added a discussion section at the end of Section 4, focusing on the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of the proposed model, as well as key steps in the simulation process. All changes are highlighted. We appreciate your feedback once again.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Brief Summary:

 

The authors explain that the aim and purpose of the paper consist in comparing and analysing the advantages and disadvantages of various modelling methods in ship navigation simulation and proposing a simulation modelling method of port system based on multi-agent information interaction, which simulates the whole process of ships entering and leaving ports in complex waters.

As main contributions of the paper, the authors stated that the proposed model can:

1)              Accurately reflect the time and space dimensions of events including ship arrival, anchorage waiting, channel navigation, ship berthing, loading and unloading operations, ship departure, etc., which can be accurate to the second, to study the impact of each event during the concentrated period of ship arrival and ship peak shift;

2)              Quantitatively identify the controlling factors that affect the navigation of regional ships. On the basis of simulating the navigation operation process of ships, it is possible to quantitatively identify the various control elements that affect the entry and exit of ships in the area, such as hydrological and meteorological conditions, channel anchorage conditions, monitoring and management conditions, etc.;

3)              Quantitatively evaluate the channel passing capacity and service level. The capacity of port and waterway is a measure of the waterway traffic capacity of waterway, and the service level of a waterway is an important indicator to measure the quality of ship operations in the waterway. Through system simulation methods, the study of port channel capacity and service level is of great significance for improving channel utilization and ensuring port service level, by the calculation method of coastal port channel capacity, it is also possible to support the provisions of relevant regulations;

4)              Analyse how the regional waterways, berths and anchorages match and coordinate correctly. From the process of ships entering and leaving the port, there is a certain connection of both time and space among the resources of anchorage, channel and berth. In order to improve the utilization efficiency of port resources, it can be explored that building the nonlinear relationship among waterway, berth and anchorage based on the simulation of the whole navigation process of the port channel.

As final conclusions of the paper, the authors established that:

1)              The paper constructs a port simulation model based on multi-agent information interaction that turns possible the identification of the whole process of port navigation and meets the development needs of port planning. The model can support port decision-making, according to the research status and actual needs.

2)              The paper presents the simulation framework of ships entering and leaving the port. According to the types and functions of agents, the agents in the simulation model are divided into ship agent, channel agent, anchorage agent and berth agent.

3)              The paper designs the interaction mechanism of different types of agents. Through the information interaction between ship agent and other agents, the navigation rules of ship agent in anchorage agent, channel agent and berth agent are formed.

4)              The paper uses the Xinhai port in Qiongzhou Strait as an example to verify the proposed simulation model. The simulation results show that the proposed simulation model can simulate the whole process of ships entering and leaving the port and can accurately predict the port capacity and the average delay time of ships. In addition, according to the simulation results, it is possible to propose and verify the port planning.

5)              In the future, the multi-agent information interactive port simulation model proposed in the paper can be expanded and upgraded in the aspects of multi-element data fusion, port land and water collaborative collection and distribution intelligent scheduling, comprehensive planning and joint operation of port groups.

General Comments:

The paper is organized firstly introducing the topic of the study and in Section 2 presenting a literature review with just around 12% of the references with less than 5 years (3 out 26). Section 2 can be incorporated into the Introduction section and the literature review needs to be improved with newer references. Section 3 presents the simulation model development, introducing the main system (parameter, database and visualization modules) and the ship navigation system (ship, anchorage, channel and berth agents). Section 4 verifies and applies the proposed simulation model in a case study: the Xinhai port in Qiongzhou Strait. Finally, Section 5 summarizes the conclusions and gives an outlook for the future work.

The paper can present interesting and valuable results concerning the simulation modelling in ports. However, the English language of the whole paper needs to be revised because some text is very confusing, several repetitions of sentences, grammar mistakes, etc.

 

Suggestions / Recommendations:

 

1.   Exhaustive revision of whole text. Some parts are very confusing and almost impossible to understand. Check repetition of text (already in Abstract).

 

2.       Page 2, Section 2 can be incorporated in Section 1.

 

3.       Pages 5 and 6, Equations 1.1 … 1.4, can be 1 …4.

 

4.       Page 6, the paragraph after the Eqs. is out of context.

 

5.       Literature review needs to be improved.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English language of the whole paper needs to be revised because some text is very confusing, several repetitions of sentences, grammar mistakes, etc.

Author Response

Some comments of Review 3#

General Comments:

Comments 1：The paper is organized firstly introducing the topic of the study and in Section 2 presenting a literature review with just around 12% of the references with less than 5 years (3 out 26). Section 2 can be incorporated into the Introduction section and the literature review needs to be improved with newer references. Section 3 presents the simulation model development, introducing the main system (parameter, database and visualization modules) and the ship navigation system (ship, anchorage, channel and berth agents). Section 4 verifies and applies the proposed simulation model in a case study: the Xinhai port in Qiongzhou Strait. Finally, Section 5 summarizes the conclusions and gives an outlook for the future work.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have thoroughly revised the manuscript according to your advice, merging the related work and introduction sections. In the second part, we added a comparative analysis of mainstream simulation models to introduce our work. In the fourth part, we included traffic flow statistics for the Qiongzhou Strait and simulation application sections, as well as a discussion section. All changes are highlighted. We appreciate your feedback once again.

 

Comments 2：The paper can present interesting and valuable results concerning the simulation modelling in ports. However, the English language of the whole paper needs to be revised because some text is very confusing, several repetitions of sentences, grammar mistakes, etc.

 

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have thoroughly revised the manuscript, restructuring it to ensure clearer and more precise presentation of our work. Additionally, we have had a native English speaker polish and edit the language throughout the manuscript. All changes are highlighted. We appreciate your feedback once again.

 Suggestions / Recommendations:

Comments 3： Exhaustive revision of whole text. Some parts are very confusing and almost impossible to understand. Check repetition of text (already in Abstract).

Response: Thank you very much for your suggestions. In response, we have thoroughly revised the manuscript and reorganized its structure to enhance the clarity and precision with which our work is presented. Additionally, we have engaged a native English speaker to polish and edit the language throughout the document. All changes have been highlighted. We appreciate your feedback once again.

 Comments 4：Page 2, Section 2 can be incorporated in Section 1.

 Response: Thank you very much for your suggestions. Based on your feedback, we have thoroughly revised the manuscript. Specifically, we have merged the sections on related work and the introduction. Additionally, in the second section of the manuscript, we have included a comparative analysis of current mainstream simulation models, which sets the stage for our own work. In the fourth section, we have added a statistical analysis of traffic flow in the Qiongzhou Strait, along with the simulation application section, and included a discussion section. All changes have been highlighted. We appreciate your valuable suggestions once again.

Comments 5：  Pages 5 and 6, Equations 1.1 … 1.4, can be 1 …4.

 Response: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have made the necessary corrections in the revised manuscript. We appreciate your feedback once again.

Comments 6： Page 6, the paragraph after the Eqs. is out of context.

  Response: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have made the necessary corrections in the revised manuscript. We appreciate your feedback once again.

Comments 7：  Literature review needs to be improved.

 Response: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have reorganized the literature review section and updated the references in the revised manuscript. All changes have been highlighted. We appreciate your feedback once again.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

There is no further comment.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There is no further comment.