Analyzing the Effect of Crowds on Passenger Behavior Inside Urban Trains through Laboratory Experiments—A Pilot Study
, Alejandra Valencia 1, Vicente Aprigliano 1, Lorena Jorquera 1, Hernan Pinto 1, MatÃas Valenzuela 1 and Taku Fujiyama 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study applies video records to study passenger behaviors on trains. It novelty divides the whole train space into five different regions and analyzes the difference among those passengers within those five different regions. This study is very interesting and has important implications. Here are my detailed comments.
1. The literature review section needs to include a broader topic related to passengers’ behavior study instead of only focusing on behavior in trains. For example, what is the main feature of passenger behaviors in different travel modes, e.g., bus and subway, and other public facilities? What methods have been used to study the behavior features?
2. The authors mentioned the level of services for passenger distribution analysis. Are there any other criteria for this analysis? What are the differences between various metrics?
3. There are some typos of units in this manuscript. For example, the unit for the area should be a squared meter.
4. Have the authors considered the need for disabled passengers? How the consideration of design for disabled people will influence the results?
5. Based on Figure 2, most of the participants are young people. It is important to consider the older population since passengers in different age groups will have different feelings about onboard space.
6. For the analysis results, it is better to conduct some statistical analyses to verify the significance of the results.
Author Response
We would like to thank the Reviewer for the appreciated comments. We tried to address all of them as best as possible. Please see attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper is very interesting, well structured, and fulfilled the objectives. The paper is relevant for transport planning in many cities. The authors present interesting research on analyzing the effect of crowds on passenger behaviour inside 2 urban trains through laboratory experiments.
1. The abstract should initially introduce the research scope and outline its relevance to developed and developing countries.
2. In-Line 155, the authors outline the study assesses the Level of Service. The authors should better highlight the methodological contribution with respect to the state of the art: In fact, more commonly used approaches could be used to solve the same problem. The evaluation should compare the proposed methodology with related work, if possible.
3. Lines 249-263 outline the process to study the distribution of passengers inside the trains. The authors should consider supporting this with an illustration of instants.
4. As part of the conclusion, the authors should also provide lessons learned from the study and also the implications for public transport planning.
Author Response
We would like to thank the Reviewer for the appreciated comments. We tried to address all of them as best as possible. Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
