A European-Wide Study on the Effects of the COVID-19 Threat on Active Transport Modes
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This article is very well referenced and structured. The main contribution of the analysis of the survey is unique and will be an interesting read for many professionals and academics.
I think that before publishing, the authors should further consider:
1) The abstract should be restructured and improved. It looks like it is lower quality than the rest of the article. Maybe it is big too (329 words)? Please check:
a) "..are concerned.(space)This work focuses.."
b) Check the phrase "as a catalyst for positive changed," which is used twice.
c) "As for the results, we learned that the policy restrictions showed ..": this sentence is not clear. What does it exactly mean? Is this a contribution of your article? We didn´t already know that?
2) In the method section, you say you use the "snowball" method. The snowball method comes with a few caveats, such as that the sample is usually people with the same characteristics. How do the authors guarantee that this sample is representative of Europeans or Europe as a population like they claim in the article title? 497 respondents using the snowball methods may not guarantee a pan-European approach. So the title is debatable. Maybe they should change the title to "A European-wide study on .." or something less bold.
3) In the "Instrument" section, maybe the authors should consider presenting the questions in a nicer way or a table with proper spacing (just like the tables used later in the article).
Other than that, I have no further remarks. The article is indeed good.
Author Response
Comment:
1) The abstract should be restructured and improved. It looks like it is lower quality than the rest of the article. Maybe it is big too (329 words)? Please check:
- a) "..are concerned.(space)This work focuses.."
- b) Check the phrase "as a catalyst for positive changed," which is used twice.
- c) "As for the results, we learned that the policy restrictions showed ..": this sentence is not clear. What does it exactly mean? Is this a contribution of your article? We didn´t already know that?
Answer: Thank you for this important comments. We followed your suggestions and revised the abstract.
Comment:
2) In the method section, you say you use the "snowball" method. The snowball method comes with a few caveats, such as that the sample is usually people with the same characteristics. How do the authors guarantee that this sample is representative of Europeans or Europe as a population like they claim in the article title? 497 respondents using the snowball methods may not guarantee a pan-European approach. So the title is debatable. Maybe they should change the title to "A European-wide study on .." or something less bold.
Answer:
Yes, the title proposed by the reviewer is more proper. The snowball was used in all countries independently, and many statements were coincident in different countries, as is shown in the results.
The tiitle has been changed as the reviewer’s suggestion
Comment:
3) In the "Instrument" section, maybe the authors should consider presenting the questions in a nicer way or a table with proper spacing (just like the tables used later in the article).
Answer:
I do not find any problem in how it is. It is a list of the questions used in the survey, as they were written. Do any of you consider that the questionnaire can be better described?
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has an up-to-date topic, reads well, and has a proper flow of information. I have some comments to improve it.
- The abstract is very long. Please try to shorten it. I would also suggest shortening the whole manuscript as it is very long.
- The literature review can be enhanced since there are many relevant published research on the effect of COVID on urban mobility. On the reduction of motorized traffic during COVID-19, for instance, you can refer to the following research, which has been conducted in a European city: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128425
- One paragraph should be added to the end of the introduction section, clarifying the structure of the paper.
- To me, the questions seem to address more the changes in the travel habits, not mainly the active mobility, which is claimed in the topic of the manuscript. Please explain how you have selected these questions to focus on active mobility.
- Please add more information about the period of data gathering, and explain if you have pre-tested your questionnaire.
- I suggest adding a comparison of the obtained results with the available literature in the discussion section.
- Please avoid presenting the literature review in the conclusion section.
- Please provide some recommendations for future research.
Author Response
Comment:
- The abstract is very long. Please try to shorten it. I would also suggest shortening the whole manuscript as it is very long.
Answer: Thank you for this important comments. We followed your suggestions and revised the abstract and shortened it. On the other hand we did not shortened the whole paper. The reason is especially the qualitative nature of the study and importance to explain the procedure and especially results (or the way how results were reached) in detail (narrative approach in the results sections and tables showing frequencies of answers).
Comment:
- The literature review can be enhanced since there are many relevant published research on the effect of COVID on urban mobility. On the reduction of motorized traffic during COVID-19, for instance, you can refer to the following research, which has been conducted in a European city: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128425
Answer: Thank you for this valuable comment. We worked some more in the introduction part, providing further information and references.
Comment:
- One paragraph should be added to the end of the introduction section, clarifying the structure of the paper.
Answer: Thank you for this important comment. We added one sentence in the end of the introduction part to clarify this.
Comment:
- To me, the questions seem to address more the changes in the travel habits, not mainly the active mobility, which is claimed in the topic of the manuscript. Please explain how you have selected these questions to focus on active mobility.
Answer:
We approached persons with open-ended questions. Thus, the answers would reveal what role active modes would play if there were changes of mobility habits due to Covid. Had the answers indicated that active modes played no role for the interviewed persons, we would have had to accept this. However, we did expect an increase in bike use and walking because of earlier experiences.
Comment:
- Please add more information about the period of data gathering, and explain if you have pre-tested your questionnaire.
Answer:
The questionnaire was pre-tested in Austria and Czech R. And the period of data collection was during spring of 2020. We have included the period in the paper.
Comment:
- I suggest adding a comparison of the obtained results with the available literature in the discussion section.
Answer:
We agree totally with the reviewer, and that is in fact what we did: We compared our results with results from other studies – please see all the references in the discussion part.
Comment:
- Please avoid presenting the literature review in the conclusion section.
Answer:
Please see comment number 6 above: Literature was mentioned in the conclusion section in order to allow the readers to compare our results to those from other studies
Comment:
- Please provide some recommendations for future research.
Answer: Thank you for this comment. In the end of the Conclusion section we added one paragraph showing the possible future research.
Reviewer 3 Report
The article submitted for review is devoted to an urgent problem - the study of the impact of COVID-19 on the transport mobility.
I have some suggestions:
1. On page 4, the authors write «The current situation may help in changing course towards more environment-friendly modes of transport, such as walking,…»). Walking is not a mode of transport form.
2. In the "Method" section, the research objectives are not formulated. It is not shown which ideas are the basis for the questions. How do the authors substantiate such formulations of questions? This needs to be shown to the readers.
3. What are the reasons for the choice of the "snowball" method by the authors? It is necessary to describe how the target groups were formed, how the respondents were selected. I would also recommend that authors submit a study design.
4. The authors write that the research is of a qualitative nature. In my opinion, this reduces the interest in the article and its value. I would recommend presenting in the work a quantitative analysis of the results of the questionnaire.
5. It is not clear what the scientific novelty is. The authors need to highlight the contribution of the article.
6. What results the methodology used brings? Only general statements have been made. In the "Discussion" section, I suggest to compare the answers of the respondents with the level of development of transport infrastructure, the degree of use of eco-friendly modes of transport and epidemiological restrictions in the studied countries. For example, these figures in Russia will be very different from those in the UK and Italy.
7. The new knowledge that this study presents in the literature must be clearly described. Also, in the conclusion, it is necessary to present the directions for future research.
Author Response
Comment:
- On page 4, the authors write «The current situation may help in changing course towards more environment-friendly modes of transport, such as walking,…»). Walking is not a mode of transport form.
Answer: Thank you for this remark. We respect opinion of the reviewer, but in this case we have to argue against this comment. According to relevant literature, walking is in fact mode of transport, in more concrete it is human powered mode of transport, or active transport (traffic) mode (besides cycling or micromobility options – e.g. PETs).
Comment:
- In the "Method" section, the research objectives are not formulated. It is not shown which ideas are the basis for the questions. How do the authors substantiate such formulations of questions? This needs to be shown to the readers.
Answer:
I think this question is bertter for RALF. I only can say that the interest was to know what the surveyed people answered to these questions and to check to what extent the answers coincide in different countries, or in what answers people from different countries agree to a common problem (the threat of pandemic)
Comment:
- What are the reasons for the choice of the "snowball" method by the authors? It is necessary to describe how the target groups were formed, how the respondents were selected. I would also recommend that authors submit a study design.
Answer:
In this case, given that in each participating country the survey was launched independently, openly through the most used social networks (WhatsApp, e-mail lists, ...), our design would be close to a Randomized Block Design, although not completely since the assignment was not prior, but each country constituted a block.
Comment:
- The authors write that the research is of a qualitative nature. In my opinion, this reduces the interest in the article and its value. I would recommend presenting in the work a quantitative analysis of the results of the questionnaire.
Answer:
This paper complements another, in revision process, which presents the quantitative results. This study is justified, because it presents qualitative results that the other does not contemplate. Merging both into a single paper would exceed the allowed length, and for that reason we have divided this presentation of the results into two papers.
Comment:
- It is not clear what the scientific novelty is. The authors need to highlight the contribution of the article.
Answer: Thank you for this important comment. We deal with this in the end of the introduction part, especially in the research gap part. We made the text more explicit in this respect and added one more sentence clarifying this.
Comment:
- What results the methodology used brings? Only general statements have been made. In the "Discussion" section, I suggest to compare the answers of the respondents with the level of development of transport infrastructure, the degree of use of eco-friendly modes of transport and epidemiological restrictions in the studied countries. For example, these figures in Russia will be very different from those in the UK and Italy.
Answer:
We agree a hundred % with the reviewer, to include all those aspects would prpvide a wonderful piece of research. However, our approach does not allow these steps, it did not deliver data that could be used in that direction. The novelty in our research is to show that interviewees (= citizens) in all the involved countries had clear opinions concerning mobility and potential necessities to change mobility, and reasons for doing this. Sometimes these opinions coincide with „experts‘“ opinions, sometimes they do not. A general statement by citizens in many different countries that „walking is important“ is probably something that needs to be considered more than the degree of epidemiological restrictions. The study of such data is often alibi and leads to pseudo-exactness and peseudo-objectivity of data, while the level of exactness that allows to present data without interporetation is never reached.
Comment:
- The new knowledge that this study presents in the literature must be clearly described. Also, in the conclusion, it is necessary to present the directions for future research.
Answer: Thank you for this comment. In the end of the Conclusion section we added one paragraph showing the possible future research.
Reviewer 4 Report
The article takes up an important issue both from the point of view of scientific research, but primarily due to the social aspect. The impact of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus epidemic on the functioning of cities, including public transport, is huge. In this respect, the selection of the topic should be assessed as up-to-date, important, and therefore correct.
The article is a proprietary research related to conducting interviews. Unfortunately, the survey was not performed in a representative manner, and the sample size is relatively small for so many of the countries in which the survey was conducted. Lack of representativeness is a key problem of this article. It is difficult to draw conclusions based on this type of research. The snowball method is usually an overlay for research that has no methodological basis. In the case of questionnaire surveys, there are very strong rules for conducting them in order to make them substantive. This article is missing this.
Unfortunately, the article is not edited in accordance with the magazine's guidelines and on the form. Consequently, it was difficult for me to review it. Line numbering makes it very easy to deal with problems in the text. The authors have to do a lot of work-related to editing, and above all, to the structure of the article. The way it is organized makes it difficult to understand the study. A different structure should be proposed, which will make it easier to perceive the content. This remark concerns the empirical part related to the analysis of the answers to the questions.
One of the more serious mistakes in the article is cited from only 30 sources. Research on the impact of a pandemic on the functioning of transport is one of the most popular in the last 2 years. The lack of a systematic review of sources and their evaluation makes it impossible to correctly identify the research gap, and thus to include the authors' research in the current scientific knowledge.
There are many articles and even issues of special journals that dealt with issues such as the peer reviewed article, for example: https://www.ejournals.eu/PKGKPTG/2020/23(2)/.
The article should improve the summary and the discussion. In the discussion, one should relate the results of one's own research to other scientific studies on this subject, and in the conclusion, refer to one's own research - summarize it.
Author Response
Comment:
The article is a proprietary research related to conducting interviews. Unfortunately, the survey was not performed in a representative manner, and the sample size is relatively small for so many of the countries in which the survey was conducted. Lack of representativeness is a key problem of this article. It is difficult to draw conclusions based on this type of research. The snowball method is usually an overlay for research that has no methodological basis. In the case of questionnaire surveys, there are very strong rules for conducting them in order to make them substantive. This article is missing this.
Answer:
In fact, this was a qualitytive study. In a qualitative study, representativity is irrelevant. When you ask open-ended questions, e.g. concerning expected changes in mobility, you shoul not insert any key-words. What is relevant to the interviewees should be put in words by themselves. In this way you fing out that they mention aspoects that you yourself woul probably not have put in a questionnaire for a „representative“ study. Thus you would get representative results of aspects that maybe are not relevant to the interviewees, or you would probably miss out important questions. In other words: A qualitative allows you to detect all aspects that COULD be relevant, and the principle of data collecting is not representativity but saturation à aks people the same question until you find that no now types of aspects are mentioned.
If you want quantitative conclusions, you need to construct a questionnaire base on a qualitative approach like ours and then to measure the distribution of the detected relevant aspects in any population of your choice.
Comment:
Unfortunately, the article is not edited in accordance with the magazine's guidelines and on the form. Consequently, it was difficult for me to review it. Line numbering makes it very easy to deal with problems in the text. The authors have to do a lot of work-related to editing, and above all, to the structure of the article. The way it is organized makes it difficult to understand the study. A different structure should be proposed, which will make it easier to perceive the content. This remark concerns the empirical part related to the analysis of the answers to the questions.
Answer: Thank you for this comment. Paper was update in line with the journal layout. We included in the end of the introduction part a short information about the structure of the paper. The logic behind this is, that in Findings section we present question, which follows the answer (narrative) and the table showing the categorisation and frequencies. This is followed by discussion, which is structured according to the different aspects of perceived change (from the point of respondent’s view).
Comment:
One of the more serious mistakes in the article is cited from only 30 sources. Research on the impact of a pandemic on the functioning of transport is one of the most popular in the last 2 years. The lack of a systematic review of sources and their evaluation makes it impossible to correctly identify the research gap, and thus to include the authors' research in the current scientific knowledge.
There are many articles and even issues of special journals that dealt with issues such as the peer reviewed article, for example: https://www.ejournals.eu/PKGKPTG/2020/23(2)/.
Answer: Thank you for this comment. We once again provided a thorough review of the recent literature and added some more references in the introduction part. In this respect we have to stress that the whole paper is focused on the psychological aspects of the behaviour and its changes, not from the point of traffic engineering. In this respect the introduction part is delivered and literature review is done.
Comment:
The article should improve the summary and the discussion. In the discussion, one should relate the results of one's own research to other scientific studies on this subject, and in the conclusion, refer to one's own research - summarize it.
Answer:
That is in fact what we did but we will add some word in the text in order to make this clearer visible.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is now fine for publication.
Author Response
Thank you.
Reviewer 3 Report
In response to remark 1, the authors did not provide references to the literature.
Comments 2-6 received short responses. These questions remain open.
Dear Authors, all questions and suggestions from reviewers are aimed at increasing the readability and interest of readers in your paper.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments in the round 2. As your comments are dealing with our responses, we elaborated them in more detail. No further changes in the manuscript took place.
Comment 1:
„In response to remark 1, the authors did not provide references to the literature.“
Answer:
Please find below 3 references as for the Walking as a transport mode:
https://www.treehugger.com/walking-transportation-too-4856691
or Hillman, M., & Whalley, A. (1979). Walking is transport (Vol. 45, No. Monograph): "Walking is viewed from many different perspectives, but it lacks informed advocacy groups and a unified policy treatment. Walking is treated here as a full transportation mode that both genders use. Significant gender differences are disguised by combining cycling and walking into a single nonmotorized transportation mode. New data derived from Australian travel surveys are presented, and the relative importance of walking to other transport modes is illustrated in terms of the fractions of trips and of travel time."
or Cerin, E., Leslie, E., & Owen, N. (2009). Explaining socio-economic status differences in walking for transport: an ecological analysis of individual, social and environmental factors. Social science & medicine, 68(6), 1013-1020.
Comment 2:
Comments 2-6 received short responses. These questions remain open.
Answer: Hereby please find below more elaborated answers:
Comments from round 1 and further answers:
Comment:
- In the "Method" section, the research objectives are not formulated. It is not shown which ideas are the basis for the questions. How do the authors substantiate such formulations of questions? This needs to be shown to the readers.
Answer:
The interest was to know what the surveyed people considered relevant with respect to these questions. The concept follows the approach of Cresswell and PlanoClark (see reference below) who summarised what was known long before why it is necessery to do qualitative research when it comes to understanding how people look at different aspects of life (in our case mobility) and to learn about the motives that lie behind that, and possibly to combine qualitytive steps with quantitative measurements (of opinions, of attitudes, etc.). Quantitative questionning does not deliver answers to these questions. Since quite some time research work in mobility is proceeding according to this view, e.g. to combine focus-group interviews with quantitative questionnaires etc.
This answer is completed by the answer given under comment 4, below.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA.
Comment:
- What are the reasons for the choice of the "snowball" method by the authors? It is necessary to describe how the target groups were formed, how the respondents were selected. I would also recommend that authors submit a study design.
Answer:
In this case, given that in each participating country the survey was launched independently, openly through the most used social networks (WhatsApp, e-mail lists, ...), our design would be close to a Randomized Block Design, although not completely since the assignment was not prior, but each country constituted a block. The ambition of authors was not to collect a representative sample for each country, but rather provide a rapid data collection while keeping in mind limited sources (financial, manpower) to collect and analyse data.
Comment:
- The authors write that the research is of a qualitative nature. In my opinion, this reduces the interest in the article and its value. I would recommend presenting in the work a quantitative analysis of the results of the questionnaire.
Answer:
In addition to comment 2 above we do not want to extend the discussion by underlining that qualitative research has a value by itself: It is the only way to understand points of view and motives – it is combined to the questions „please explain“ or „why do you think so“ or „why do you act in this way“. However, at this place we would like to answer to the reviewer‘s comment as follows; This paper complements another paper, publiched by now, which presents the quantitative results that we produced based on a questionnaire that was compiled according to what has been learned in this qualitative research. This study is also justified ny the fact that it presents qualitative results that the other does not contemplate. Merging both into a single paper would exceed the allowed length, and for that reason we have divided this presentation of the results into two papers.
Comment:
- It is not clear what the scientific novelty is. The authors need to highlight the contribution of the article.
Answer: Thank you for this important comment. We deal with this in the end of the introduction part, especially in the research gap part. We made the text more explicit in this respect and added one more sentence clarifying this. In concrete: “The qualitative nature of this study, which allows us to understand the researched topic in depth including everything “what lies behind the behavior” as motives, believes, norms, attitudes, defines novelty and main contribution to the current state of the art in this respect.”. To sum up, the novelty of this research is in depth description of motives which form behaviour and which can’t be researched with the techniques of observation or analysis of human behaviour but have to be researched by analysis (mostly qualitative) of what people think, feel and say.
Comment:
- What results the methodology used brings? Only general statements have been made. In the "Discussion" section, I suggest to compare the answers of the respondents with the level of development of transport infrastructure, the degree of use of eco-friendly modes of transport and epidemiological restrictions in the studied countries. For example, these figures in Russia will be very different from those in the UK and Italy.
Answer:
We agree a hundred % with the reviewer, to include all those aspects would provide a wonderful piece of research. However, our approach does not allow these steps, it did not deliver data that could be used in that direction. The novelty in our research is to show that interviewees (= citizens) in all the involved countries had clear opinions concerning mobility and potential necessities to change mobility, and reasons for doing this. Sometimes these opinions coincide with „experts‘“ opinions, sometimes they do not. A general statement by citizens in many different countries that „walking is important“ is probably something that needs to be considered more than the degree of epidemiological restrictions. The study of such data is often alibi and leads to pseudo-exactness and peseudo-objectivity of data, while the level of exactness that allows to present data without interpretation is never reached.
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors ignored most of the previous recommendations and made no changes to the manuscript. The article is almost identical as before the first round of review. The authors' explanations do not strengthen the quality of the article.
Unfortunately, the paper contains flaws that prevent it from being recommended for a journal with a high IF.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your note.
Best wishes, Matus Sucha
