A Tailored Pricing Strategy for Different Types of Users in Hybrid Carsharing Systems
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
the topic is timely and important.
The study needs several improvements:
1) this area is well investigated, there is need to clearly point what gap in the literature is it filling?
2) the literature review about autonomous vehicles need to be expanded by looking at the following articles:
- Darwesh, A., Woods, G., & Saripalli, S. (2020). Systems Integration, Simulation, and Control for Autonomous Trucking. In 2020 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) (pp. 1486-1491). IEEE.
- Li, M., Zeng, Z., & Wang, Y. (2021). An innovative car sharing technological paradigm towards sustainable mobility. Journal of Cleaner Production, 288, 125626.
- https://www.mobileye.com/blog/self-driving-robotaxi-sixt-germany-iaa/
- Gibbs, S. (2017). Google sibling waymo launches fully autonomous ride-hailing service. The Guardian, 7.
3) please build the motivation to your research around the contemporary topic of sustainability by explaining how car sharing has the potential contributes to decrease air pollution.
4) if possible then please compare the case study to other well known ongoing project of car-sharing run by mobileye at Israel and waymo in Arizona.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors in this paper study the problem of calculating a tailored pricing strategy for different types of users in carsharing systems. The authors propose a bi-objective nonlinear programming model and a genetic algorithm. The paper is overall quite interesting. However, some points need improvement:
- There are several syntax and grammar mistakes that need to be fixed throughout the text.
- The domain of the variables described in section 3.1 needs to be added.
- Given that optimization problems are computational complex by nature, the authors should add some experiments and a related discussion about the execution time and scalability, in terms of problem sizes, of their proposed algorithms.
- The font size in figures 3 and 4 israther small and not easily readable.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I would like to thank the author for giving me the opportunity to read this manuscript. This manuscript considers the characteristics of different types of users in hybrid carsharing systems, in which sharing autonomous vehicles (SAVs) and conventional sharing cars (CSCs) coexist, and it tailors a pricing strategy (TPS) to maximize operator’s profit and minimize users’ costs. The manuscript has a solid mathematical model and benefits from the insights provided by the case study. The author could additionally improve the quality of the manuscript by incorporating the followings:
1- The mathematical model needs to be interpreted better. There is a huge room for improvement here for the author to consider. The mathematical formulas should not only explain what the formula does but why they are considered and modeled.
2- Within the constraint set, authors can develop a constraint considering other competitors as the flooring for the hybrid carsharing systems. For instance, ride-sharing platforms are significantly increasing their market share. The author at least could mention in the literature review part that the pricing should be in the competitive market and one the great competitor here is the ride-sharing platforms. Several studies could be used to expand this discussion and extension of the model such as "Impacts of trip characteristics and weather condition on ride-sourcing network: Evidence from Uber and Lyft" or "Ride-sharing platforms from drivers’ perspective: Evidence from Uber and Lyft drivers".
3- Additionally, the conclusion part should be expanded including the Future Research, Managerial implications, and Theoretical Implications.
I hope the authors could incorporate my comments and improve the quality of the manuscript.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
thanks for addressing my comments
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have revised the paper in a satisfactory manner.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have responded to my comments and the manuscript is significantly improved.
