Review Reports - Electric Bus Selection with Multicriteria Decision Analysis for Green Transportation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Look at my all comments and address them carefully.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Professor,

Please find attached the manuscript, “Electric Bus Selection with Multi-criteria Decision Analysis for Green Transportation” by Mustafa HAMURCU and Tamer EREN, which is revised according to the reviewer’s comments. All revisions made considering each comment are listed below:

Reviewer’s Comments and the Revisions Made

Reviewer’s Comment 1. Define Nomenclature, Greek symbols, subscripts, superscripts, and acronyms separately in table form. Define abbreviations such as AHP, EV, TOPSIS, USA, CR, CI, GHG, ANP, VIKOR, ANP, FMCDM, and so on separately in table form.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the following corrections and joints are made.

Nomenclature

Acronyms and Symbols

AHP analytic hierarchy process

TOPSIS technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution

EV electric vehicle

USA United States of America

MCDM multi-criteria decision -making

IEA international energy agency

GHG greenhouse gas

ANP analytic network process

VIKOR vise kriterijumska optimizacija I kompromisno resenje

ELECTRE elimination et choix traduisant la realite

MOORA multi-objective optimization on the basis of ratio analysis

PROMETHEE preference ranking organization method for enrichment of evaluations

FMCDM fuzzy multi-criteria decision -making

Ref. reference

HSR high-speed railway

CI consistency index

CR consistency ratio

RI random index

the eigenvalue

Reviewer’s Comment 3. Check spacing between value and deg C symbol through out the manuscript.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer opinion, corrections are made.

Reviewer’s Comment 4. In Literature review only two or three papers are discussed about electric bus battery. Add below two references in the Introduction section.

-Panchal, S., M. Rashid, F. Long, M. Mathew, M., Fraser, R., & Fowler, M., “Degradation Testing and Modeling of 200Ah LiFePO4 Battery for EV”. SAE Technical Paper, 2018-01-0441.

-S. Panchal, I. Dincer, M. Agelin-Chaab, R. Fraser, M. Fowler, “Design and simulation of a lithium-ion battery at large C-rates and varying boundary conditions through heat flux distributions”, International Journal of Measurement, Vol 116 (2018), Pages 382-390.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the following corrections and joints are made.

“Panchal, S., M. Rashid, F. Long, M. Mathew, M., Fraser, R., & Fowler, M., “Degradation Testing and Modeling of 200Ah LiFePO4 Battery for EV”. SAE Technical Paper, 2018-01-0441.

Besides, the following papers also are added;

Hamurcu M. and Eren, T. A fuzzy analytical network process approach to the selection of the rail system projects. Sigma Journal of Engineering and Natural Sciences, 2018, 9(4), 415-426.

Kandakoglu, A., Frini, A., & Amor, S.B. Multicriteria decision making for sustainable development: A systematic review. Journal of Multi‐Criteria Decision Analysis, 2019, 26(5-6), 202-251.

Frini, A., & Amor, S.B. MUPOM: A multi-criteria multi-period outranking method for decision-making in sustainable development context. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 2019, 76, 10-25.

Panchal, S.; Rashid, M.; Long, F.; Mathew, M.; Fraser, R.; Fowler, M. Degradation Testing and Modeling of 200 Ah LiFePO4 Battery; SAE Technical Paper; SAE International: Detroit, MI, USA, 2018a.

Panchal, S., Dincer, I., Agelin-Chaab, M., Fraser, R., & Fowler, M. Design and simulation of a lithium-ion battery at large C-rates and varying boundary conditions through heat flux distributions. Measurement, 2018b, 116, 382-390.

Hamurcu M. and Eren, T. Applications of The MOORA and TOPSIS Method for Decision of Electric Vehicle in Public Transportation Technology. Transport, 2020, (In press).

Süt, N. İ., Hamurcu, M., Eren, T. An Application of Green Transportation in Campus: A Decision Making Process for Selection of Ring Vehicles. Gazi Journal of Engineering Sciences, 2019, 5(1), 9-21.

Hamurcu, M., Alakaş, H.M. and Eren, T. Selection of rail system projects with analytic hierarchy process and goal programming. Sigma Journal of Engineering and Natural Sciences, 2017, 8(4), 291-302.

Noureddine, M., & Ristic, M. Route planning for hazardous materials transportation: Multicriteria decision making approach. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 2019, 2(1), 66-85.

Alakaş, H. M., Bucak, M., & Kızıltaş, Ş. Selection of Ambulance Supplier Company with AHP-TOPSIS and AHP-VIKOR Methods. Harran University Journal of Engineering, 2019, 4(1), 93-101.

Özcan, E.C., Danışan, T., Eren, T. A mathematical model proposal for maintenance strategies optimization of the most critical electrical equipment groups of hydroelectric power plants, Pamukkale University Journal of Engineering Sciences, 2019, 25(4):498-506.

Özcan, E.C., Ünlüsoy, S., Eren, T. A combined goal programming-AHP approach supported with TOPSIS for maintenance strategy selection in hydroelectric power plants. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2017, 78, 1410-1423.

Reviewer’s Comment 5. Give the details of all six buses evaluated.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the following corrections and joints are made.

“"Electric busses used at various cities in the world are helped as decision alternatives in this study. For the purpose of selection of electric buss, the quantitative data used are shown in Table 5.”

Reviewer’s Comment 6. I am still not clear about TOPSIS method. Add some more description in Section 3.2

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the following corrections and adds are made in section 3.2.

“The TOPSIS method has a wide range of application areas, such as green supply chain management [89], selection of electric molding machinery [90], assessing organization performances [91], site selection of wind power plants [92], public blockchain evaluation [93], strategy assessment [94], financial performance rankings [95], and solar energy project selection [96].

The TOPSIS method was presented by Jen Chen and Lai Hwang (1992), with reference to Hwang and Yoon (1981) [97-98]. The basic principle in this model with respect to multiple criteria involves the chosen alternative having the shortest distance from the ideal solution and the farthest distance from the negative ideal solution. The ideal solution minimizes cost-type criteria and maximizes beneficial criteria, while the negative ideal solution is the reverse situation. Stated in other words, the optimal alternative is the farthest from the negative ideal solution; therefore, the optimal alternative is geometrically closest to the ideal solution. While the ideal solution is defined using the best value rating alternatives for each individual criterion, the negative ideal solution represents the worst value rating alternative [99].

TOPSIS presents rational and understandable results, with the computational processes including basic mathematics. This method allows us to incorporate important weights of criteria into the comparison procedures. The TOPSIS method consists of the following six steps [100].”

Reviewer’s Comment 7. Check Eq 10.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the correction is made.

Reviewer’s Comment 8. Font size inside Fig 1 is too small. Try to increase it for readers.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the correction is made.

Reviewer’s Comment 9. In Table 4, speed is mentioned in km/h while range is expressed in miles. Be consistent with one unit.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the correction is made as km.

Reviewer’s Comment 10. Font size is different in Table 7 as compared to other tables. Be consistent with font size for all tables.

The revisions made. All tables are controlled, and according to the reviewer, the correction is made as “Palatino Linotype”-10.

Reviewer’s Comment 11. Explain in detail about ranking of alternatives with TOPSIS.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer opinion, the following corrections and joints are made.

“Ranking of alternatives with TOPSIS

Here, alternatives were ranked using TOPSIS. The proposed AHP–TOPSIS decision model was applied to select a suitable electric bus. After obtaining the local weights of the criteria via AHP, the decision matrix was constructed. Table 5 and Table 6 show the attribute values for each electric bus alternative. We used these values for the TOPSIS method as the initial decision matrix.

Table 6. Evaluation matrix for alternative buses.

Alternatives	Criteria
Alternatives	K1	K2	K3	K4	K5	K6
EV_1	72	50	200	360	360	2
EV_2	68,4	58	200	360	394	1,25
EV_3	90	50	280	103	170	7
EV_4	80	57	50	200	200	2
EV_5	75	90	280	250	230	5
EV_6	75	136	300	250	346	7

After normalizing the decision matrix, it was multiplied by the weights of the criteria obtained from the AHP method to derive the weighted normalized decision matrix according to Table 6 and expression (6). Table 7 shows the weighted normalized decision matrix, while Table 6 shows the positive andvalues for the best and worst attribute values for each criterion.

Table 7. Weighted evaluations for alternative buses.

Alternatives	Criteria
Alternatives	C1	C2	C3	C4	C5	C6
The weight of AHP	0,0710	0,1196	0,1529	0,1014	0,3428	0,2123
EV_1	0,027	0,031	0,053	0,055	0,170	0,037
EV_2	0,026	0,035	0,053	0,055	0,186	0,023
EV_3	0,034	0,031	0,075	0,016	0,080	0,129
EV_4	0,030	0,035	0,013	0,031	0,095	0,037
EV_5	0,028	0,055	0,075	0,038	0,109	0,092
EV_6	0,028	0,083	0,080	0,038	0,163	0,129

The ideal solution and negative ideal solution were calculated using expression (8) and expression (9). The ideal solution was represented by EV⁺= {0,034, 0,083, 0,080, 0,055, 0,186, 0,023} and the negative ideal solution was represented by EV^-= {0,026, 0,031, 0,013, 0,016, 0,080, 0,129}. Finally, the distance between the ideal and negative ideal solutions was calculated using expressions (10) and (11), and the last expression (12) was used for the final ranking. Based on the ??? values shown in Table 8, the ranking of the electric buses was EV_2, EV_1, EV_6, EV_5, EV_4, and EV_3. The application results indicated that EV_2 was the best, with a ??? value of 0.7434 according to the determination criteria.

Table 8. Weighted rankings.

Alternatives				Rank
EV_1	0,0630	0,1404	0,6902	2
EV_2	0,0552	0,1601	0,7434	1
EV_3	0,1637	0,0618	0,2741	6
EV_4	0,1264	0,0946	0,4281	5
EV_5	0,1092	0,0839	0,4344	4
EV_6	0,1099	0,1210	0,5241	3

“

Reviewer’s Comment 12. In conclusion, give only main findings of your research with an appropriate value.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer opinion, the following joints are made in the result section.

“The EV_2 electric bus in the alternatives was determined to be the best alternative according to the determined six criteria for mass transportation. According to result of the AHP and sensitive analysis, the most important factors for selection of electric bus become battery capacity (C5) with value of 0.3428, and charging time (C6) with value of 0.2123.”

Reviewer’s Comment 12. Check ref [5]; Check ref [8]; Check ref [13]; Check ref [15]; Check ref [17]; Check ref [51]; Check ref [83]; Everything is missing in this reference. Fix it carefully; Check ref [87]; Check ref [92].

The revisions made. All references are controlled, corrections and joints are made. All references are arranged according to journal format.

Reviewer’s Comment 12. We normally do not use DOI when all authors and co-authors names are provided with volume, issue, page numbers and year. However, if you want to use, keep the same format for all references.

The revisions made. All references are controlled, corrections and joints are made. All references are arranged according to journal format.

Reviewer’s Comment 12. In reference section, at some point, the authors have mentioned all authors and co-authors names, while at some point, only main author’s name and then ”et.al” word is used. Use only one format for referencing. Check this issue throughout all references and fix them. Check all references one more time especially with co-authors first and last names, and volume, issue, and page numbers.

The revisions made. All references are controlled, corrections and joints are made. All references are arranged according to journal format.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. Dr. Tamer EREN

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors reported a multi-criteria decison approach applied in the vehicles trasportation case of study.

The overall work is very sound and solid. The concluson are strongly supported by the data collected .

Nonetheless, the qality of the presentation is very poor with the figure that are poorly drawed. Furtheremore, the quality of the english is very poor and the absece of line numbers made very diffucult reporte teh many typos and bad written senteces.

I recommand the pubblication of this only after a deep language check.

Author Response

Dear Professor,

Reviewer’s Comments and the Revisions Made

Reviewer’s Comment 1. The overall work is very sound and solid. The concluson are strongly supported by the data collected .

I recommand the pubblication of this only after a deep language check.

The revisions made. According to the reviewer, the study is looked back on detailly again. A deep language check is made in the study. while language mistakes were correcting, the quality of the english language of the study was improved.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The improvments were correctly performed.

It reached the pubblication quality level.