An Exploration of Characteristics and Time Series Forecast of Fatal Road Crashes in Manipal, India

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents an analysis of fatal road crashes in Manipal (India) from 2008-2018. Some results are found relating to the most common causes of the fatal crashes such as speed or the influence of alcohol. Moreover, a time series forecast of the number of fatal crashes until the year 2022 is proposed.

The discussion reports a deep comprehensive comparation with other literature findings. I suggest improving the first part of the text, the accident analysis, as it is the starting point of your study. You can find interesting food for thought there:

• World Road Association. Technical Committee 3.1 Road Safety. Road Accident Investigation Guidelines for Road Engineers; PIARC: Paris, France, 2007; ISBN 978-2-84060-321-https://www.piarc.org/en/order-library/19593-en-Road%20accident%20investigation%20guidelines%20for%20road%20engineers
• Vaiana, R. et al. A Comprehensive Approach Combining Regulatory Procedures and Accident Data Analysis for Road Safety Management Based on the European Directive 2019/1936/EC. Safety2021, 7, 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/safety7010006
• Mannering, F.L. et al. Unobserved heterogeneity and the statistical analysis of highway accident data.  Methods Accid. Res. 2016, 11, 1–16.

Table 1 and Figure 1 report the same data; I suggest removing Figure 1 as it does not add new information to the text.

Subsections 2.2 and 2.3 are missing or the sections are not numbered in a correct way

Please correct Table caption on line 257 (Table 2).

References on lines 608 and 611 are the same

You must conform the references according to the Instructions for Authors: “in the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], they must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript”.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article describes the state of road safety (in terms of fatalities of traffic accidents on transport infrastructure) in accordance with specific local characteristics in India and predicts its change (increase) over the analyzed period. After a detailed review, I note that the data on the characteristics of fatal road accidents in the city of Manipal, India are analyzed according to standard procedures and methods, which may mean that no new, different approaches and methods can be deduced from the article. which could make the article interesting for the general scientific community. I think it would be sensible to redesign the article and especially to add those contents that would analytically, procedurally, or otherwise contribute to the development of knowledge in the field of traffic safety.

The authors should pay special attention to (consider) the following issues when making corrections:
- the reference system must be made in accordance with the Instructions for authors of papers for a specific publication; it was found that some references are missing in the list of references (for example WHO: Annual report, 2018, ...), finding references from the list of references is almost impossible;
- it can be concluded from the article that the development of the road transport system is not keeping pace with the development of motorization in India. One possible reason is the lack of a sustainable transport policy. The authors hardly report this. In this regard, I think it would be good to supplement the article with the situation in this area;
- The authors highlight the fact that the study in question is a novelty in terms of addressing different demographic characteristics and different behaviors of drivers. In this sense, any traffic safety study addressing different regional areas is a novelty. I couldn’t agree with that. I would expect that in addition to taking into account local characteristics (demographic, weather, political), the article will also discuss new theoretical approaches for analyzing data and forecasting the situation in the future. The fact that the study is a novelty is necessary to rethink and offer ideas that would contribute to the development of scientific thought in this field;
- The authors mention certain demographic and other characteristics of the situation under consideration. They point out the large proportion of students, the fact that the area in question is a tourist center, and the typical local weather conditions. The analysis (descriptive statistics) does not clearly show all these highlighted specifics. It needs to be supplemented in a meaningful way;
- the well-known time series method was used to predict the expected future situation - time-dependent exponential smoothing model with Holt-Winters method for forecasting. Would the use of any other methods give other results? Results in the field of forecasting are prepared by 2022, assuming that the database on traffic accidents is available by 2018. In the meantime, databases for 2019, 2020, and 2021 are very likely to be available. How do constructed time series coincide with them? - the accuracy of the method used.

I, therefore, suggest that the authors reconsider the content of the proposed article, take into account the proposed notes and that such a meaningfully revised article be re-submitted for review.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting article and my congratulations to the authors on taking care of this problem. The article is the most relevant to the topic of the Sustainability magazine.

General comments:

1. Have the authors read the "Microsoft Word template" at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions and the guidelines for authors in the journal MDPI: Sustainability (Instructions for Authors). The article is written according to the guidelines of another publisher, not MDPI.
2. In file "Microsoft Word template" Abstract: There is written that a single paragraph has about 200 words maximum. There are 250 words in the article.
3. Please re-edit lines 21-24 and indicate the 3 main reasons. In the file: "Microsoft Word template" is written that: (3) Results: Summarize the main findings of the article.
4. In the file: "Microsoft Word template" it is written: Citation: Lastname, F.; Lastname, F.; Lastname, F. Title. The authors did not fill it in.
5. What are keywords? Why are keywords used in this articles and what is their definition? Could the word India be a keyword? On what position the authors’ article will be found after entering the word "India". In the file: "Microsoft Word template" it is written: Keywords: Three to ten pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article and common to the subject discipline.
6. In the file: "Microsoft Word template" it is written: References should be numbered in order of appearance and indicated by a numeral or numerals in square brackets, e.g., [1] or [2,3], or [4–6]. See the end of the document for further details on references. Please correct this in whole article.
7. Please transfer the old subsection 1.3 to the Introduction section. In the file: "Microsoft Word template" it is written: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the principal conclusions. As far as possible, please keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists outside your particular field of research. Watch a few articles on Sustainability and see how the Introduction section ends.
8. Please give old subsection 1.1 as section 2.
9. Please move the old subsection 1.2 to the subsection 3.1.
10. Old section 2 Materials and Methods, will be now section 3 Materials and Methods.
11. In old subsection 2.1 (new 3.2), give a map of India and mark the Manipal area on it.
12. Line 162: complete literature. Is there permission from the police to use the data in the article. Is copyright preserved?
13. In line 184: wrong subsection numbering.
14. Line 187: no literature description. Are copyrights preserved?
15. Line 197: no literature description. Are copyrights preserved?
16. Please complete the old section 2 with (new 3) a description of the research methodology and provide a diagram of this methodology, with a detailed separation of data and the statistical tests and analyses used.
17. Line 1200-204 and Table 1: no literature description. Are copyrights preserved? Is this data collected by the authors?
18. Figure 1. The title of the drawing must be on the same page as the figure. Please delete the title on the chart "Year-wise distribution of fatal crashes", because it is repeated under the chart. Please provide details in the chart.
19. Similarly, in Figures 2–6, please remove the titles at the top of the chart and give the figure titles accordingly
20. After all the titles of tables and figures in the article, please put a dot.
21. Figures 1-7: no literature description. Are copyrights preserved? Is this data collected by the authors?
22. Old subsection 3.2-3.6 (new 4.2–4.6) there is a lack of a reliable description of the analysed data and the statistical analysis mentioned by the authors in the old subsection 2.4. There is only a percentage separation of data obtained from someone here. There is no description of where this data comes from. Please old subsection 3.2-3.6 (new 4.2–4.6) obligatorily to describe more broadly and give a description of statistical tests.
23. In old subsection 3.2-3.6 (new 4.2–4.6), please separate the data into types of roads, street sections in home zones, main inlets to the city and intersections in home zones in the centre and at city entrances, etc. The description of the data used by the authors in the article does not help the Reader. This data cannot be compared with other data from other cities in India or other countries. The data used in the drawings are of no use for any other analysis. Even for Indian authors from other cities.
24. Are the authors using the word crashes correctly or should it be accidents?
25. In old subsection 3.2 (new 4.2), please provide a map and graphically mark the accumulation of fatal accidents. The data from old subsection 3.2 (new 4.2) must indicate the purpose of the article, that is, indicate in which parts of the roads and the city there is an accumulation of conflict.
26. Please refer to old subsection 3.3.-3.6 (new 4.3-4.6) for a similar separation and location of conflicts on the Manipal map.
27. In subsection 3.7 (new 4.7), please describe the statistical analysis, give its basic parameters and graph prediction for the years (2019-2022).
28. In lines 268-273, reference should be made to appropriate charts and supplemented map.
29. Line 270: ??? [?] and (Figure ???).
30. Throughout section 4 provide additions to (Figures from the article).
31. The conclusion of the discussion should be supported by reliable data. Final paragraph in old section 4 (new 5) – provide a map showing roads with increased youth traffic, traffic intensity and comparative number of accidents.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has been redesigned and supplemented accordingly. I do not think that any major additions are needed.

It is essential to review the order of the references. References do not follow in the proper order.

Reviewer 3 Report

Unfortunately, the authors have not answered all my questions (there were 31 questions in the review). There is only a file for the reviewer 1 and 3.

The authors corrected the article slightly. The article is still below the level in Sustainability

Unfortunately, the corrections suggested by the reviewer are still missing.

The authors did not check the definition of keywords that should be used in scientific publications. They still use words that logically cannot be keywords because they cannot be used to find corresponding articles on the problem in question. The word like India, nor the word Manipal should be used as a keyword.

The reviewer maintains the previous assessment - major.

.