Introducing New Index in Forest Roads Pavement Management System
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
In the revised version of the article, the authors have included all the suggested corrections, additions and clarifications, therefore I am asking for the article to be submitted for publication.
Author Response
Point: In the revised version of the article, the authors have included all the suggested corrections, additions and clarifications, therefore I am asking for the article to be submitted for publication.
Response: Many thanks for your final comments and decision, we are very glad that we can did it.
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
The manuscript showed the new index for FRPMS such as FRPCI, but the relationships among PCI, FRPCI, and URCI have not fully explained in abstract, introduction, and method sections. Therefore it is hard to understand the objects and contents of this manuscript. Furthermore, the methods should be adequately described and the results should be clearly presented. Some interpretation of results in discussion section should be explained in the result section. It might be easy for readers to understand the results.
L10-11: The main rating method might be FRPCI developed by Heidari et al. 2018 rather than PCI.
L19: Total correlation was 0.77 in Table 6 instead of 0.87.
L21: PCI and URCI ratings (0.85-45 and 1.2-53) should be shown in Table 5.
L103: Could you introduce FRPCI in introduction section?
L105-128: I could not understand how to evaluate PCI and URCI in these sentences, Table 1 and Figure 1. Could you show the table for PCI and URCI like Table 2 for FRPCI? Furthermore, the explanation of HDM-4 in L232-237 of the result section should be moved to the method section.
L151: fig 1 might be fig 2.
Figure 3: Branch names such as Aleshrood, Zengaldareh, Sangdarka, Angetarood, and Hamsava should be shown in Figure 3. In the explanation on title of Fig. 3, what is "1 to 3 degrees"?
L213-226: This part might be moved to the method section. Instead, could you explain the result of Table 4 comparing the differences among branches?
Table 5: "Mean of parameters and sum of them together in table 2 (Weights)" might be "The sum of min and max weights from table 4". "URPCI" should be "URCI".
L242, L248: Figure 3 should be Figure 4.
Table 6: What is "Y"?
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
L8 You state “This research was conducted to evaluate the performance of a method for rating the surface condition of forest roads and eventually to adapt the method to the situation prevailing in a forest road network. The rating method selected as the basis for this experiment was the pavement condition index (PCI) developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
L219 You state “The FRPCI has higher values than the PCI and URCI, which indicates that the condition of forest roads has been better estimated using this index because, in forest roads, the desired standards are much lower than rural and highways roads.”
The different rating systems apply weights to observed attributes of the road and combine these weights to produce an overall assessment of the road condition i.e. Failed to Excellent. Comparing the numerical value produced by one rating system to another rating system is not valid. You might compare the road condition assessment between rating systems, but if they are found to differ this does provide evidence that one is better.
This fundamental flaw in your logic is core to your paper and thus I have to recommend that the paper in its current form is rejected.
The title manuscript is currently available online at https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202207.0238/download/final_file
The journal editor will have to determine if this constitutes previous publication.
Select detailed comments
L28. In the first paragraph you use the term pavement six times; however, it is never defined. This is important when referencing pavement management systems. The term pavement is sometimes used to reference the road surface without specifying the type of surface; however, it is also used to reference specific hardened surfaces on roads (e.g. asphalt or concrete).
Heidari et al, 2018 are cited numerous times in the text but they are not included in the reference list.
References such as “McManus, K.J., 2013. Modeling deterioration and maintenance of Australian low volume traffic roads.” are incomplete.
Figure 1 there is no explanation for how this data is collected or what values mean (for example what is the deduct value). In addition this figure is copied from another publication, has permission been granted?
Table 2 does not make sense. What are the total weights at the bottom of the columns? The total weights are numerical yet the column consists of numerical and descriptive data. The total weight row appears to repeat the first row of the table which is called FRPCI.
Figure 2. It is not clear how branch and section differ. How does section 1 relate to section 2? The diagram appears to show a 20m right of way width, why is this included and how is it used in the data collection.
L192 States data has been “taken six times during peak period (P) and standard (N). Data are presented in Table 3.” What are the observations presented in table 3 (maximum minimum, average, …?) and how do they relate to P and N? Should this information be in the results section?
Table 4. V and W are presented with *, does this mean they should be defined in a footnote? I cannot find a definition.
L217 states URCI and PCI were calculated by HDM-4 software. What is this calculation and what is this software? It is not presented in the methods.
Figure 3 What are the axis variables and units?
Table 6 presents regression equations. What is the correlation metric and how is it calculated (for example is it R2)? Where is the goodness of fit analysis (partial F tests to examination significance of the variables and assessment of residual errors)?
Table 7 Why are results only given for the Hamsava branch? Volume of timber harvested and Traffic are likely highly correlated.
Reviewer 2 Report
In the reviewed article, the authors present research on an important problem concerning the determination of the condition of the surface of forest roads and related maintenance decisions. It is methodical work based on own field measurements. At the beginning, the authors discuss the problem in detail, citing valuable and up-to-date literature.
The research area was quite well described in words, but the location (apart from the names) is defined only by extreme geographic coordinates. Much more information would be provided by a map of this area with the five analyzed areas marked (overview map) and separate maps for each area with an outline of each road network studied.
The total length of all roads has been determined at 185 km - it seems a lot, but the amount of field work and the resulting amount of data for analysis will be demonstrated by the number of designated and described test sections in each of the designated areas. These data are not given directly in the article - it can only be concluded on the basis of fig. 3 and the entry in line no. 269. The amount of measurement data is related to the quality of the statistical analyzes carried out - the average calculated from 5 measurements is treated differently than for 500, in addition, some statistical analyzes and tests cannot be performed on the basis of too small a sample. This information on the number of sections in sections should be completed - maybe it is enough to add one row in table 3 and put this information there.
An exemplary photograph of one of the tested sections would be a valuable addition, perhaps it would also be possible to add a record of field measurements from this particular section.
Table 6 presents linear regression equations developed for entire sections - three of them do not contain the X5 (management expierience) component. What is the reason for omitting this component of the equation? The same table shows the correlation coefficient - is it a straight line correlation coefficient (R) or a coefficient of determination (R ^ 2)? In line 338 it is suggested that this is a coefficient of determination, but I would ask for more clarification in Table 6.
Table 7 shows the results of the regression analysis for the examined variables, but only for the Hamsava branch. In my opinion (although I know differently) it will be interesting to present the results of the remaining analyzes, even if they show no statistical significance.
Perhaps the authors sought to minimize the volume of the article and therefore included only content deemed absolutely necessary.
The authors themselves admit in the discussion that the conducted study did not cover a sufficient number of observations (also in terms of: the variability of the factors necessary to observe). However, the desire to improve this state and the collection of a larger data bank will result in a significant increase in field work, which will increase the costs of this activity and reduce efficiency. Since the problem is important and the research presented here has a result, it may be necessary (for the sake of simplicity, in further research) to omit some features of less documented importance, while increasing the number of test sections?
