Accessibility of Urban Forests and Parks for People with Disabilities in Wheelchairs, Considering the Surface and Longitudinal Slope of the Trails
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please see the attached.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank You for taking the time to review our paper and provide us with constructive feedback. We appreciate Your suggestions for improving our manuscript. Thank you for bringing attention to the important issue of adapting leisure spaces to meet the needs of people with disabilities. I agree that this is a timely research topic, and it is unfortunate that it has not received more scientific consideration.
Several corrections were made in the paper at the request of other reviewers so that You can check that as well, and the article was sent with the suggested modifications of all reviewers. We wanted to clarify that the entire article has been sent for checking and correcting by native MDPI English speakers. All grammatical and wording errors will be corrected in the final version.
I wanted to express my gratitude for Your thoughtful review of our manuscript. Your suggestions were constructive and targeted the significant mistakes in the article's writing, which helped us to strengthen the manuscript and make it clearer and more concise.
Thank You again for taking the time to review our manuscript and for providing us with such helpful feedback. We appreciate Your time and expertise.
Best Regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript entitled “Accessibility to urban forests and parks for people with disabilities in wheelchairs, considering the surface and the longitudinal slope of the trails” investigates the wheelchair accessibility of trails in an urban park Zagreb, Croatia. The authors used geodetic instruments to accurately measure the longitudinal slopes of the trails, and employed a survey of eight people to gather information about the movement of people in wheelchairs.
The topic of the manuscript is certainly important: even today, the needs of people with disabilities may often be neglected, limiting their ability to reach desired destinations. The results of the study may also be useful in improving the accessibility in the park chosen by the authors as their study area.
However, despite its merits, the manuscript has flaws that should be addressed.
First and foremost, I am not convinced that the study can contribute to what is already known about the effect of slopes for wheelchair accessibility. The threshold slopes reported by the authors seem to be very similar to what already exists in various technical specifications and regulations related to urban planning. While such regulations and specifications may be more scarce for recreational trails, many physical and physiological principles of using wheelchair for movement are universal for all environments. Although I am not an expert in this field, I am certain there is plenty of research around this topic. Most of the research cited in Introduction is not highly relevant to the topic. It is not until Discussion that the authors mention a study which has reported similar results with regard to slopes. I believe there exists many more similar studies that should be included in the review of previous literature.
I also felt there is too much emphasis on technology and equipment used to measure the longitudinal slopes. Although I understand it is important to carry out the measurements accurately, the detail in which it is described in disproportionate to the overall aim of the research. In contrast, I would have expected a more comprehensive analysis of the movement measurements and survey data. For example, the manuscript would have benefited from a more rigorous analysis of the combined effect of slope and distance. I was also left wondering if the authors only considered moving uphill? Going uphill is, of course, physically more exhausting than moving downhill, but when it comes to the feeling of safety, moving downhill may actually be considered more dangerous than moving uphill as the latter can be controlled more easily. In addition, the personal characteristics of the persons taking part in the survey could have also been utilized as explanatory variables, improving the general applicability of the results.
Minor remarks:
- I am not qualified to judge about the English language and style, but it looks like that some sentences in the manuscript are incomplete and/or incoherent
- Introduction, first paragraph: I think COVID is actually a distraction in this manuscript. Although the pandemic has drastically affected the societies, lifestyles and population groups, the special needs of people with disabilities are not limited to the COVID pandemic. The first paragraph could very well be omitted completely.
- Some of the images in Figures 3 and 4 could also be omitted
- Page 3, first paragraph: In my opinion, the text in this paragraph includes unnecessary details, and gives an impression of a travel brochure. The authors may want to reconsider the contents of this paragraph.
- Page 13, lines 385-386: the authors fit a power trendline to the scatterplot, claiming that such a line is best used with “data sets that compare measurements that increase at a specific rate”. I think the authors should explain this a little bit more (possibly with references). What are the principles of fitting curves to data involving heart rate measurements?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank You for taking the time to review our paper and provide us with constructive feedback. We appreciate Your suggestions for improving our manuscript. Thank you for bringing attention to the important issue of adapting leisure spaces to meet the needs of people with disabilities. I agree with almost everything that You stated. The manuscript's topic is certainly important: even today, the needs of people with disabilities may often be neglected, limiting their ability to reach their desired destinations. The results of the study may also be useful in improving the accessibility of the park chosen by the authors.
Several corrections were made in the paper at the request of other reviewers so that You can check that as well, and the article was sent with the suggested modifications of all reviewers. We wanted to clarify that the entire article has been sent for checking and correcting by native MDPI English speakers. All grammatical and wording errors will be corrected in the final version.
I wanted to express my gratitude for Your thoughtful review of our manuscript. Your suggestions were constructive and targeted the significant mistakes in the article's writing, which helped us to strengthen the manuscript and make it clearer and more concise.
Thank You again for taking the time to review our manuscript and for providing us with such helpful feedback. We appreciate Your time and expertise.
Best Regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The topic of adapting leisure spaces to the needs of people with disabilities is an important one, but it is generally not a subject of scientific consideration, as the authors of this article point out. Perhaps this is because it touches on very technical and practical issues. Therefore, it is all the more worth appreciating the authors' effort and their attempt to scientifically investigate the problem of accessibility of recreational trails. I have a few general and more specific comments:
1. In the introduction, line 55- please complete the information on which EU countries have this kind of detailed guidelines. Before going on to explain the purpose of the paper (line 76), the authors should briefly show which technical parameters of the roads have been subject to adaptation for people with disabilities at the time, or is it really only the vertical gradient? Since it is not easy to find relevant literature, I suggest looking at the research report commissioned by the foundation V4 "Trails for disabled people in the V4 countries". No. 11510242.
2. Material and methods
In the description of the Research area at line 118, the authors write that "The research was conducted on built and maintained paths and paths that lead to contents 118 of high interest". Is this referring to some previous research, a field visit or perhaps a pilot. Is this element integral to the research being presented? Please provide specific criteria for the selection of routes for research
3. Aims and hypotheses
It is clear that accurate measurement requires precise geomatics. The hypothesis should absolutely be revised, as it is currently worded it is too unscientific. Please consider the possibility of a hypothesis better based on the statements in lines 135-144 that addresses the factors that determine the ability of wheelchair users to freely participate in recreation.
4. Measurements
Whether people with disabilities made evaluations of the trails after they had hiked them, or whether individual stages of the trail were evaluated. When were data collected on the opinions of the participants in the experiment - the description needs to be expanded. Line 2014 mentions six selected locations along the route, but whether respondents gave their opinion after walking the route or at these checkpoints is not clear. I believe that already at this point the description of the survey participants should have been expanded. Line 2015 mentions 8 respondents, but only from the results section (line 299) do we know that there were as many women as men and that they were of different ages. This is definitely not enough. What about the level of disability? Please add a subsection of survey participants, where there will be more information about who took part in the experiment and how the questionnaire was constructed (line 363-368). Incorrect numbering of figures. Figure 7 appears twice.
5. Discussion
In the discussion the authors themselves refer to the shortcomings I mentioned above, having taken my comments into account I think the discussion should be reworded. More emphasis could be put on the accuracy of the measurements, as well as on the social theme-disability level and accessibility of the space
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank You for taking the time to review our paper and provide us with constructive feedback. We appreciate Your suggestions for improving our manuscript. Thank you for bringing attention to the important issue of adapting leisure spaces to meet the needs of people with disabilities. I agree that this is a crucial topic, and it is unfortunate that it has not received more scientific consideration.
Several corrections were made in the paper at the request of other reviewers so that You can check that as well, and the article was sent with the suggested modifications of all reviewers. We wanted to clarify that the entire article has been sent for checking and correcting by native MDPI English speakers. All grammatical and wording errors will be corrected in the final version.
I wanted to express my gratitude for Your thoughtful review of our manuscript. Your suggestions were constructive and targeted the minor/major mistakes in the article's writing, which has helped us to strengthen the manuscript and make it clearer and more concise.
Thank You again for taking the time to review our manuscript and for providing us with such helpful feedback. We appreciate Your time and expertise.
Best Regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript has been improved with additional details.
One thing I would like to suggest is the synthesis of the outcomes derived from the individual samples. Because as authors already mentioned, the sample size is quite small, I think they need to more focus on the individual characteristics in relation to each trail addressed in this study. For example, in the last section one participant who has no difficulty in the movement at any trails could be compared with the other who experiences some/many challenges at some trails in detail. This comparison can provide the insight for the future study albeit the lack of samples this time.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank You again for taking the time to review our paper and provide us with constructive feedback. We appreciate Your suggestions for improving our manuscript.
We added what You requested, and have added a text that compares the best and worst candidate and through the Study Limitations sub-chapter we have given some guidelines that should be applied in future research and defined by methodology for different categorization of respondents.
Added text "It should be noted that there is a visible difference among the subjects. Some stopped on most of the tracks due to movement, while one subject managed to overcome all the tracks with varying degrees of risk. It was observed that future research should con-sider the subjects' physical condition and their participation in specific sports. The subject who overcame all the trails was an active recreationist and athlete. Addition-ally, in the comparison categories, males and females should be analyzed separately. This research demonstrated that men found it easier to overcome critical slopes, but again something like that statement requires a significantly larger sample."
We also attach a certificate of verified English text by English speakers at MDPI.
I wanted to express my gratitude for Your thoughtful review of our manuscript. Your suggestions were constructive and professional, which has helped us to strengthen the manuscript and make it clearer and more concise.
Thank You again for taking the time to review our manuscript and for providing us with such helpful feedback. We appreciate Your time and expertise.
Best Regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I am satisfied with the changes made by the authors.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your professionalism and the time you took to read this article.
Best regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for the renewed opportunity to read this text. In general, I think the current version is better than the previous one. At the same time, I am sorry that the authors did not include the items I mentioned. I kindly ask you to add them, they are important items, which is confirmed by the fact of the grant obtained by the Visegrad Foundation. It is a pity that the form of response to the review is so laconic.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank You again for taking the time to review our paper and provide us with constructive feedback. We appreciate Your suggestions for improving our manuscript.
We added what You requested, and we cited an article that was created with the support of the project Trails for disabled people in the V4 countries (International Visegrad Fund's Small Grant No. 11510242). It is an article by Janeczko, E.; Jakubisová, M.; Woźnicka, M.; Fialova, J.; Kotásková, P. Preferences of people with disabilities on wheelchairs in relation to forest trails for recreation in selected European countries. Folia Forestalia Polonica, Series A – Forestry, 2016, Vol. 58 (3), 116–122. doi: 10.1515/ffp-2016-0013. In addition, we selected the results related to pavement with the same or similar characteristics as the investigated pavement in this study.
Added text: “One of the most crucial factors, along with longitudinal slopes, is undoubtedly the surface on which people with disabilities move. These surfaces should be compact and have good adhesion. However, the surface studied in this research was unbound crushed stone (macadam). Janeczko et al. [51]. reported that 77.2% of respondents in Slovakia found this surface to be the least friendly for wheelchair movement, while in the Czech Republic, the number was 68.2%, and in Poland, it was 42.3%. It is assumed that future research on solid surfaces will yield results indicating that independent movement on slopes with greater longitudinal slopes will be possible due to better grip and a greater sense of safety while moving.”
We also attach a certificate of verified English text by English speakers at MDPI.
I wanted to express my gratitude for Your thoughtful review of our manuscript. Your suggestions were constructive and professional, which has helped us to strengthen the manuscript and make it clearer and more concise.
Thank You again for taking the time to review our manuscript and for providing us with such helpful feedback. We appreciate Your time and expertise.
Best Regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
