A Systematic Review of the Application of Road Safety Valuation Methods in Assessing the Economic Impact of Road Traffic Injuries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Dear Author,

 

I have carefully reviewed your manuscript entitled " A Systematic Review of the Application of Road Safety Valuation Methods in Assessing the Economic Impact of Road Traffic Injuries " submitted to future transportation journal. I appreciate the effort and thought put into the systematic review. Overall, the review addresses an important topic related to the use of road safety valuation methods in assessing the economic impact of road injuries. However, there are a few concerns as suggested below for authors consideration:

 

1.      Figure 1 showcases systematic flow diagram of screening process. It might be useful for readers to elaborate or mention about the other sources that identified 203 studies; as well as reasons for excluding 1908 studies during the screening process.  

2.       Out of 2455 eligible studies, only 102 were considered for final review and corresponding findings. How do authors justify the accuracy and usefulness of the results from such a sample (~4.1%)? Even though there are reasons for excluding the other studies due to lack of sufficient information.

3.       There are cross-reference errors in the article. For example, on page 4 and line 147. Authors should carefully review the entire article to rectify any such errors.

4.       Authors should consider converting line 158 to 160 as equation instead of text with mathematical operations.

5.       Figure 2: Authors should consider keeping the formatting consistent (text size) across the figures.

6.       Authors should consider formatting equations as per suggested guidelines and number them across the article.  

7.       In HC method, usage of existing databases was predominant.

8.       Only 4% of studies are focused on LICs and this is identified as a key gap in the review. However, authors might consider elaborating on the proportion of studies focused on LICs that were excluded at the start and will it follow similar proportion? or specific reasons have eliminated studies that were focused on LICs.

9.       Authors should reconsider the organization of sections and sub-sections for better readability. Providing an overview summary of sections upfront might also help readers.

10.   Authors mention the rate of underreporting during the recommendation section. This is a key element in evaluating the actual impact of RTIs.

Overall, authors have done thorough investigation of the existing evidence supporting the use of road safety valuation methods.

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor edits required;

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a limited study - a meta-review to be more precise - and within those limits it is very well done and well presented. However it is more of a quantitative cross tabulation of methods used for RTI injuries, broken down by data types (e.g. surveys) and income level of country. It does not filter for quality of studies, or exclude on that basis, and does not do much analysis of the basic profile of studies that is presented. As a result it is hard to say what the importance of usefulness of the research is. What might the results presented suggest about desirability of methods or data collection? What if any significance might there be of low income countries preferring overall some types of methods in comparison to higher income ones? The authors need to provide more speculation on this than they do. They also need to be more explicit up-front about the limits of their meta-review and explain why they are working within those limits ( besides the obvious one of it requiring less effort). These changes would still make it a modest contribution, but its usefulness and applicability would be clearer.

Author Response

Please see attachment

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

"A Systematic Review of the Application of Road Safety Valuation Methods in Assessing the Economic Impact of Road Traffic Injuries"

• Explain why understanding the analysis methods is important. What insights can we gain from comparing methods in different income contexts?
• Provide clear takeaways for both high and low-income contexts regarding the adopted methods.
• Add a table summarizing previous review studies to highlight the need for your study and provide context.
• Share the keywords and Boolean operators used during the literature search.
• Strengthen the recommendation section for more practical insights.
• Acknowledge safety issues related to emerging transport modes, such as e-scooters and e-bikes. You may to relevant review papers:

- E-bike safety: Individual-level factors and incident characteristics

 

-Electric scooter safety: An integrative review of evidence from transport and medical research domains.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The paper must be substantially improved

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx