Framework for Assessing the Sustainability Impacts of Truck Routing Strategies
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper proposed a truck routing strategy using a traffic micro-simulation model and quantify its impact on travel delays. Then, by identifying important areas, facilities, and corridors, a truck routing model is developed to estimate congestion-based travel delays and fuel consumption, and monetize the impact.
Insufficient:
1. What are the advantages of taking this approach? Are there other factors that are overlooked?
2. The data in the analysis section is a screenshot and paste.
3. The front and back logical connection is not tight.
4. How is the method formula derived?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper deals with the development of a truck routing strategy with a traffic micro-simulation model. The subject of the paper is in line with the aims and scope of the Journal. However, the paper is poorly structured and written. It has serious flaws regarding each section of the paper. The paper does not provide any meaningful scientific contribution. More detailed comments are below.
1. In the abstract the authors state “The impact of freight on our transportation system…”. How do they expect us to know what is “their” transportation system?
2. The abstract is not good. It is unbalanced (most of the abstract is dedicated to background). The authors did not highlight the methodology, main results, and conclusions.
3. The introduction is not good. The introduction should present the background of the problem, i.e. motivation for dealing with this problem, aim of the study, methodology, main results, conclusions, contributions, and a short description of the following sections of the paper. The authors did not specify the data presented in the introduction. They seem outdated.
4. The structure of the paper is odd. It is confusing. The first part of the methodology should be moved to a separate section named “Literature review” or “Related papers”. It should also be supplemented to cover all study aspects (background, methodology, and case study). The authors should also identify research gaps they identified according to the reviewed literature. The literature is also extremely outdated. Most of the references the authors use are from the 90s, some even older, and there is only one reference younger than 15 years and even this one is five years old.
5. The data used in the study are highly questionable. They seem outdated and unreliable.
6. I don’t see anything novel in this study. The methodology is well-established and broadly used. The application is also not novel since this methodology is broadly used for solving similar problems.
7. The paper does not have a discussion. The authors did not discuss how the results can be interpreted from the perspective of previous studies. Discussion should clearly and concisely explain the significance of the obtained results to demonstrate the actual contribution of the article to this field of research when compared with the existing and studied literature.
8. The paper does not highlight any limitations of the study, not theoretical or practical implications.
9. The paper does not provide any future research directions.
10. English writing should be significantly improved. Some sentences are hardly understandable (e.g. lines 13-14 “On one hand, trucks need to efficiently serve commerce and industry, while at the same time their activities need not contribute to a decline in the quality of the infrastructure being used or public safety.”).
11. Technical issues:
a) Figures and tables are not formatted according to the Instructions for authors.
b) References are not formatted according to the instructions for authors.
c) Some references are not cited anywhere in the main text (e.g. [4]). All references from the reference list must be cited somewhere in the text, and vice versa.
d) Some references are missing important information, such as volume, issue, and page numbers. All references must be complete.
e) Abbreviations and acronyms must be defined the first time they appear in the text. For example, the abbreviation “USDOT” is not defined. Check the rest of them.
f) Some figures (e.g. Figure 4) and tables (e.g. Table 6) are not mentioned anywhere in the text. All figures and tables must be quoted somewhere in the text.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish writing should be significantly improved. Some sentences are hardly understandable (e.g. lines 13-14 “On one hand, trucks need to efficiently serve commerce and industry, while at the same time their activities need not contribute to a decline in the quality of the infrastructure being used or public safety.”).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper aims to develop a methodology for truck routes in order to quantify the impacts on travel time, emissions, cost and safety. The model formulation is based on investigating the travel delays from several incidents and the scenario analysis uses origin-destination data of trucks moving on the I-75 Florida corridor. An interesting work, dealing with a timeliness problem, providing a lot of information and including a truck routing simulation modeling.
This work, although interesting, presents a number of shortcomings that prevent it from being published.
The Introduction section, gives a brief overview of the problem stated, however the main purpose of this research is not clear. The authors write in line 72 “… The objective of this research is to develop operational strategies on truck routes to enhance the travel efficiency…” but what do they exactly investigate? What is the main research question? What is the contribution of this investigation and what the research community or practitioners can gain? This is important and it should be quite clear.
The first paragraphs in Section 2, that seem like a literature review, need to be enriched. And this is because all references presented are before 2005. Please check for more recent ones. Are the ones presented here related to freight movement and truck routing? Some works (e.g. line 125, Al-Deek et al., line 128 Mangeot and Lesort) are not listed in the References section. Furthermore, the References (in the last section) are not presented in the proper format (one reference is presented two times), please follow the guidelines from the Journal. This sub-section needs also to emphasize the research gap and the main objective of this research work.
Another shortcoming of the paper is that, although it follows the structure of a research paper (introduction, materials and methods, etc.), nevertheless, the sub-sections and the general way the article is not well organised and the way it is presented is not clear. The overall methodology described in Section 2 and the results presented in Section 3 are not coherent. It gives the impression that they were separated analyses. It lacks scientific justification and a cohesion between the discussions. It is difficult to follow the overall conclusion.
The conclusions should expand and include potential limitations of this work but also to provide the readers the important points from the work analysis.
The title of the paper is about sustainability impacts, nevertheless, there is no description or reference regarding this issue (except of line 74 and 76).
Why do the authors use data from years 2013 and 2014? It should be clearly stated.
Which is the shortest path and which is the alternative path? The caption of Figure 4 is not giving this information.
Figures 5 and 6, is axis x the km of I-75 route?
In line 217 “… there are five distribution centers…” but this is not so in Figure 7.
Provide sources for all figures that are not implemented by the authors (e.g. Figure 1, or 2).
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing is required, e.g. line 344, "... number of trucks effected...", line 405 "... specifications the effected..." .
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have invested a substantial effort to address all issues identified in the previous review round, thus significantly improving the quality of their study. Therefore I suggest an acceptance of the paper in its present form.
Author Response
We are deeply grateful for the positive assessment and the recommendation for acceptance from Reviewer 2. Your acknowledgment of the efforts we have invested to address the previous comments is highly appreciated. We look forward to the opportunity to contribute to the academic community with our research and thank you once again for the thorough reviews and valuable guidance throughout the revision process.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have responded to all comments, nevertheless, the paper is still far from being published.
The paper aims to “formulate operational strategies…” (line 68), but it is not clear within the text how these strategies could be formulated based on the methodology and the modeling procedure followed. The authors have clearly written the main scope of the research but cannot prove that their methodology and framework could lead to prove this scope. Consequently, the conclusions drawn, fail to adequately achieve and support the above scope and in this way the readers are difficulty convinced that the research conducted has managed to attain this.
Moreover, although the authors have added 3 new references, the section of the literature review still needs to be updated and enriched, in order to contribute to the body of knowledge. Additionally, the References (last section) still needs to be reformatted and follow the Journal’s guidelines (see for example, ref. 4, 5, 8, 11, 24, etc.). Some sources that exist in the text are not referenced in the last section (see USDOT 2017 Mobility Report, in line 57 and 65, USDOT FHWA 1996, in line 139 or HCM 2010).
Furthermore, the quality of writing and content needs improvement in order to form a clear and coherent text that can engage the readers and last, the overall structure followed is confusing for the readers (see for example page 8, there is section 2 Methodology, but also a section 2 exists in page 3, or section 3 in page 14 and 4).
One minor remark in line 289 and Table 1: is this from HCM 2010 or 1985?
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are some points in the text that need improvement and rephrasing.
Author Response
Author’s response to the second round of reviewer’s comments
“Framework for Assessing Sustainability Impacts of Truck Routing Strategies”
Paper No: systems-2891899
Please note that the reviewer comments are presented in bold italicized font. Our responses to the comments are presented in normal font. Revisions to the paper are presented in italicized font.
Response to Reviewer 3’s Second Round of Comments
The authors have responded to all comments, nevertheless, the paper is still far from being published.
We thank Reviewer 3 for their thorough evaluation and continued engagement with our manuscript. Your observations are critical for improving our work and ensuring that it meets the high standards of publication. We have taken each point seriously and have made corresponding adjustments as detailed below.
The paper aims to “formulate operational strategies…” (line 68), but it is not clear within the text how these strategies could be formulated based on the methodology and the modeling procedure followed. The authors have clearly written the main scope of the research but cannot prove that their methodology and framework could lead to prove this scope. Consequently, the conclusions drawn, fail to adequately achieve and support the above scope and in this way the readers are difficulty convinced that the research conducted has managed to attain this.
We acknowledge the concerns about the clarity in how our methodology leads to the formulation of operational strategies. To address this, we have revisited the relevant sections to provide a direct linkage between our methodology, modeling procedures, and the operational strategies that emerged from our research.
Moreover, although the authors have added 3 new references, the section of the literature review still needs to be updated and enriched, in order to contribute to the body of knowledge.
We have further updated the literature review to incorporate additional contemporary studies that directly relate to our research objectives. This includes recent findings and theories that reinforce the significance of our methodology and its contribution to the body of knowledge. We believe these new references will solidify the positioning of our work within the current academic landscape.
Additionally, the References (last section) still needs to be reformatted and follow the Journal’s guidelines (see for example, ref. 4, 5, 8, 11, 24, etc.). Some sources that exist in the text are not referenced in the last section (see USDOT 2017 Mobility Report, in line 57 and 65, USDOT FHWA 1996, in line 139 or HCM 2010).
We have meticulously reformatted the References section to adhere to the Journal’s guidelines. Corrections were made to all the cited references, such as references 4, 5, 8, 11, and 24, ensuring that they conform to the required citation style. Additionally, all in-text citations now have corresponding and accurate entries in the reference list, including those previously omitted.
Furthermore, the quality of writing and content needs improvement in order to form a clear and coherent text that can engage the readers and last, the overall structure followed is confusing for the readers (see for example page 8, there is section 2 Methodology, but also a section 2 exists in page 3, or section 3 in page 14 and 4).
We have undertaken a comprehensive review of our manuscript for language, clarity, and consistency to ensure that the text is engaging and easy to follow. The manuscript has been revised to improve readability and to form a coherent narrative that will hold the reader’s attention throughout.
The structure of the manuscript has been re-evaluated to eliminate any confusion. We have renumbered the sections and subsections for a logical flow and to ensure that each part is distinctly labeled and easy to navigate.
One minor remark in line 289 and Table 1: is this from HCM 2010 or 1985?
Regarding line 289 and Table 1, we have clarified that the data presented was based on the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) 1985. We apologize for any confusion. We have revised the section by removing the table and explaining the parameter selection process in text.
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript has been enriched, references have added and the structure seems reasonable.
The authors have added a text in section 3, that although seems to fit for the last section (conclusions), nevertheless, it does not interrupt the flow and coherence of the text.
The authors have answered all comments and made a significant effort to make the manuscript eligible for publication.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageNo comments for the quality of English language.
