Synergy of Road Network Planning Indices on Central Retail District Pedestrian Evacuation Efficiency
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article aims to investigate how much some road network planning indexes affect pedestrian evacuation in central retail districts. The block form, the network density, the network connectivity, the road type, and the road width were considered as variables in the study. Using an agent-based simulation platform, the evacuation time was evaluated for several scenarios under different road network planning index levels.
The developed methodology could be a method to support planners' decisions. In fact, the authors give road network design suggestions based on the findings of the study in the last part of the manuscript. For this reason, the manuscript is relevant to the field.
The title is appropriate. The abstract appropriately summarizes the purpose of the paper, the methodology adopted by the author, and the results. Furthermore, the article is well-written and properly structured. The aim of the paper is well-stated by the author, and the gap that the paper wants to fill is well-defined. I particularly appreciated the logical flow and the smooth progression of the content, which make the article, in my opinion, pleasant to read. The author systematically and logically described the method, and the case study is well-detailed. Thus, in my opinion, the paper will be suitable for publication in this Journal after some minor revisions.
Here are some comments to further improve the article:
1) If using an acronym (e.g. CRD, DOE, ABM, OSM, CBD, RBD), please introduce it with full terminology in the first instance so your reader knows what it means.
2) Figure 2, Figure 4, and Table 6 are not cited in the text.
3) Please add an outline of the paper in the Introduction.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer，
Many thanks to your careful reading and thoughtful comments on our manuscript entitled “Synergy of Road Network Planning Indexes on CRD Pedestrian Evacuation Efficiency” (ID: ijgi-2341217). Thank you for your good comments!
The responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:
Point 1: If using an acronym (e.g. CRD, DOE, ABM, OSM, CBD, RBD), please introduce it with full terminology in the first instance so your reader knows what it means.
Response 1: We have introduced the acronyms (including CRD, ODOE, ABM, OSM, NSFC, LBS, CBD, RBD) with full terminology in the first instance. Hope to make the article easy to be understood.
Point 2: Figure 2, Figure 4, and Table 6 are not cited in the text.
Response 2: We have cited the Figure 2, Figure 4, and Table 6 in the text, and checked the other figures and tables.
Point 3: Please add an outline of the paper in the Introduction.
Response 3: We have added the outline of the paper in the end of the Introduction as follow: “The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: The study materials, experiment setup and methods involved in this paper are elaborated in Section 2. Section 3 presents the experimental results. The discussion and conclusion are described in Section 4 and Section 5 separately.”
We have addressed the comments and look forward to hearing from you soon.
With best regards.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This study evaluates the synergy between road network planning indexes and pedestrian evacuation efficiency taking a typical CRD road network in China as example. The idea is interesting and the paper is well-written. My main concerns are as follows;
- The long names for CRD and DOE (lines 12 and 13, respectively) should be provided in the abstract. Maybe the authors may consider including this in the title, too.
- The sentence/s that presents the key results in the abstract (lines 17-20) should be revised.
- - ABM simulation has been used to simulate evacuation scenarios (line 109, lines 124-126, Section 2.3). Some details of this simulation platform should be described. Currently, there is very limited information about this simulation platform.
- Section 2.3 - It is not clear how the parameters were set. Were any empirical data used here? And, how the mode was calibrated? How it is confirmed whether the simulation represents actual real-world conditions?
- Presentation of the results (i.e., graphs, figures, tables) is nice and attractive. However, the significance and the practical importance of these outcomes are questionable as these are mainly simulation outcomes. Was any validation OR comparison between simulation outcomes and real-world empirical data done?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer，
Many thanks to your careful reading and thoughtful comments on our manuscript entitled “Synergy of Road Network Planning Indexes on CRD Pedestrian Evacuation Efficiency” (ID: ijgi-2341217). We have studied the comments carefully and tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments which marked by the “Track Changes” function in MS word in the paper, and would like to resubmit it for your consideration.
Please see the attachment for the responses with figures and tables.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript is well handled. Congratulations.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer，
Many thanks to your careful reading and thoughtful comments on our manuscript entitled “Synergy of Road Network Planning Indexes on CRD Pedestrian Evacuation Efficiency” (ID: ijgi-2341217). Thank you for your good comments!
The responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:
Point 1: This manuscript is well handled. Congratulations.
Response 1: Many thanks to your good comments!
We have addressed the comments and look forward to hearing from you soon.
With best regards.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have improved the manuscript.
I have no further comments.
