Analysis of Electric Moped Scooter Sharing in Berlin: A Technical, Economic and Environmental Perspective
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a well-designed research and which is focused on a timely topic. My first impression was to recommend the approval of the article, however, it might be relevant to consider some issues that are presented below:
- I would suggest the authors to add one or two research questions;
- Please consider the option to close your article in section “6. Conclusions”. You can subdivide this section into 6.1. contributions to theory; 6.2. managerial contributions; 6.3. research limitations; 6.4. suggestions for future research.
In my opinion this is a good article, so do not feel obliged to follow my recommendations.
Once these shortcomings are overcome or at least that you have thought about them, I think the article will be ready for publication.
Author Response
Thank you for your encouraging words and valuable feedback!
We thought about your suggestion to close our article in Section 6. However, in our opinion, Section 6 is already rather short, which is why we would like to avoid a further division of the chapter.
Reviewer 2 Report
- Authors should place decision symbol in place of decision making in the decision model, figure 2.
- The direction for "no" option for the decision; "Does scooter have sufficient battery capacity" is confusing. Authors need to clearly indicate the direction.
- Authors need to clearly mention the novel contribution of the work.
- What are the environmental parameters go as a input to determine the Life cycle assessment (LCA)
- There is a typo regarding referencing in Section 2.4
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable feedback!
We included the decision symbol in Figure 2 and added another arrow to clarify the direction.
We clarified the novel contribution of the work according to your suggestion in Section 1, lines 47-51.
The environmental parameters were from ecoinvent, this is stated in Section 2.4, and described in detail in Section 3.3. The vehicle-specific parameters (which are also input parameters for the life cycle assessment, but also for the sharing simulation and total cost of ownership) are described in Section 3.1. Additionally, we added the consumption of the e-mopeds (line 225).
We corrected the typo in Section 2.4.
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper aims to study the ability of an electric moped sharing system to replace passenger car transport in Berlin, through a sharing simulation.
This paper shows first the setting of the sharing simulations, then applied to the Berlin case study. In particular, the costs incurred within the expected lifespan of a shared e-moped and the evaluation of the life cycle are studied.
The case study includes 3 main scenarios (basic, average, and maximum) and 3 additional ones. For each main scenario, the capital costs and operating costs are analyzed as part of the total cost of ownership, while for the life cycle assessment, the mix of the German electricity grid in 2019 and 100% renewable energies. Otherwise, the additional scenarios only analyze costs.
The paper is interesting, consistent with the title, and well structured.
Here below some suggestion to improve the quality and effectiveness of the paper:
Comment 1
In the abstract the object of the study, the method used, and the main results are well explained. The objective of the analysis carried out is missing. In my opinion, the abstract should contain the object of the study, the purpose, the method, and the results. Reading the Section 1, the objective is clear, but I suggest including it in the abstract as well.
Comment 2
The contributions of this paper should be polished to better emphasize the research gap.
Comment 3
In Section 1, rows 33-34, you said "In contrast to the many contributions on other shared forms of transport including car, kick scooter or bike sharing…". I am not aware of any forms of kick scooter sharing. Does "kick scooter" mean electric kick scooters?
If it is about e-kick scooters, I suggest you an interesting review that has also dealt with some life cycle assessment analysis with which you can enrich your literature: https://doi.org/10.3390/su13073692 and further will justify the previous sentence, that should be justified.
Comment 4
The paper lacks an indication as to who the work performed is aimed at. In section 7, it is alluded to in the last lines, but I suggest we broaden this question and highlight it better.
Comment 5
Which is the useful life of these systems? Where are the rehabilitation costs and the depreciation costs? How the authors think to implement this vehicle fleet? I suggest extending the analysis over some years.
Comment 6
In section 1, row 42, and section 2, row 64, use the acronyms TCO and LCA. The first time you use an acronym you should write it in extended mode and then with the abbreviation, as rightly done in sections 2.3 and 2.4. I suggest writing it like this in section 1.
Comment 7
Check references to bibliography, tables, and figures (e.g., sections 2.4, 4, 4.2.1).
Comment 8
Section 4.1.1, row 379, you write “23.3%”. The table shows 23.33% and the other percentages are also indicated with double decimal places. I suggest modifying it to maintain continuity.
Comment 9
There are some typos: This list is not exhaustive.
- Section 4.1.2, row 404 a capital letter after the colon.
- Section 4.1.2, row 406 “table 11” without capitalizing the first letter.
- Section 7, row 674 a capital letter after the colon.
Moreover, note the Data is a plural word.
Comment 10
In section 4.3 there is a difference between the data indicated in the text and those indicated in the figure. For example, 32.4 g CO2-eq / km is indicated in line 453, while adding up the data in the figure is 32.3 g CO2-eq / km. I suggest checking them, especially in figure 12. In fact, there are 6 parameters in the legend, but 4 data and the sum of these is different from the data reported in the text.
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable feedback!
We reworked the abstract to clarify the objective of the study.
We reworked the research gap to highlight the novel contribution of our work (Section Introduction, line 47-51) and also emphasized the audience more clearly in Section Outlook.
Thank you for mentioning the interesting research article, we included it in our work and used the term “e-scooters” instead of “kick scooters”.
The useful life of the systems is mentioned in the text and we added it to Table 2. Depreciation costs were already included - here, only one e-moped lifecycle is considered, that is why we chose 5 years.
We now use first the extended words of LCA and TCO and use the abbreviations from there on.
We have some issues with the style sheet and contacted the editorials, we don’t know why the references are wrongly displayed but we are working on it.
We corrected the number in section 4.1.1 (now line 281).
We corrected all typos.
We corrected the data in Section 4.3.
Reviewer 4 Report
I like the research idea, the research design, and its execution. The authors identified the research gap (not enough studies on the potential use of electric moped scooters (e-mopeds) sharing services for making the urban transport system more sustainable) and undertook to fill it with the simulation of implementing such system in Berlin.
The whole rationale behind the simulation, all assumptions, and the different scenarios took into consideration were thoroughly explained. The procedure is easy to follow and replicable if someone would like to use it for different city settings (if the needed data for that city would be available).
The reviewed study is well-grounded in the existing literature and the provided discussion points to how it is relatable to other works in this field. The limitations and further research directions were clearly stated by the authors. The potential interest of this work for stakeholders was mentioned in Section 7: Outlook but it would gain from being broadened.
One of the small issues is the lack of the description of the structure of the paper in Section 1: Introduction, i.e. stating what each section deals with; it would help with quicker navigation through the paper for the interested readers.
There are small issues of the editorial nature: like missing reference (line 139), or lack of numbers when referring to the Figures (line: 370, 421, and 428).
Language is adequate and allows for following the authors' argumentation easily. Some small problems (like in lines 4, 398, 410, 472, 503, or 674) will be mostly ironed out during the editing process.
It was an interesting read, good work!
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable feedback. And thank you for the suggestions regarding the lack of numbers referring to figures. We have some issues with the style sheet and contacted the editorials, we don’t know why the references are wrongly displayed but we are working on it.
We reworked the end of the outlook to broaden the potential interest of this work for stakeholders.
We thought about your suggestion to introduce the structure of our work more detailed in Section 1, but due to the simple structure of this study (each main section is divided into simulation, tco and lca), we decided against an additional introduction of the structure.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors addressed all my comments. The paper is improved and can be acceptable.
