Exploring Family Ties and Interpersonal Dynamics—A Geospatial Simulation Analyzing Their Influence on Evacuation Efficiency within Urban Communities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for sharing your work. The topic is quite innovative, and your research is potentially very useful in practice for urban planners and emergency managers in diverse contexts.The mansuscript is generally well-written, in a clear and succinct manner, with a good flow. It does need a review with regard to the use of some words in English and some grammatical edits. See below some of those points.
The use of agent-based modeling brings some weaknesses such as a lack of common standards for communicating and describing ABMs, and verification and validation challenges. Do you have some thoughts or plans as to how to adress this to the extent possible?
My other question is: have you or are you planning to communicate your work to local emergency services that could benefit when coordinating evacuation plans? If so, please refer to the manuscript.
Also, have you considered the possibility of developing an app, incorporating your evacuation simulation scenaria, so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of evacuation efforts in the urban context, by offering personalized, real-time guidance during emergencies?
With respect to the English language:
Line 86: you can replave lacuna with a more appropriate word.
Line 91: not ‘studies’, ‘studied’
Line 97: scenaria not scenarios (in other past of your menuscript as well)
Line 146: shows not shown
Line 255 encompasses not is encompassed
Line 256: it comprises of…
Line 321: rewrite sentence
Please review the entire document.
Figure 8: remoeve the gridlines from within the Figure.
The quality of some of your figures can be improved. See for example Fig. 12.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Have been entered above.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper is interesting and explores aspects of evacuation efficiency during fires within urban communities, with a case study in China. However, the paper demands major improvements before being considered for publication.
The work deals with two typologies of interpersonal relationships within residential areas: Family ties and joint-rental ties. In a first sight, despite they may be common interpersonal relationships typologies in China, it is opportune to highlight that the conclusions are deeply dependent of cultural and educational aspects. Thus, communities placed in other countries, or even in other China regions, may have different results and it poses a strong limitation that should be clearer presented.
The evacuation modeling considering these two typologies is valid, but the conclusions are very limited, considering the authors’ main recommendation is to simply limit the proportion of joint-rental ties in the building occupation. The conclusion ignores the point is that this proposal involves the complex limitation of a socioeconomic dynamics and places evacuation in the center of a societal policy, what sounds very limited. Besides that, the approach reduces the human behaviors to a rigid framework and does not address other measures than may have interesting results, like educational actions and the strengthening of neighbors’ ties, what may merge joint-rental and family ties in a more cohesive arrangement. It is also not much clear why family ties are related to lower evacuation parameters, since the evacuation tends to be organized in groups and the velocity of the group maybe limited by the elders. Another limitation is that the research does not address other ties, like people living alone or people with reduced mobility, what strongly influences the evacuation process.
Thus, I recommend this paper to discuss critically the aspects proposed above and expand the analysis beyond the modeling (major revision).
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageAdequate
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease see the attached document.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper is ok to be published.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for addressing my concerns.
