Environmental Impact Evaluation as a Key Element in Ensuring Sustainable Development of Rail Transport

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper provides a good summary of sustainable development in the railway industry. Overall, it is well written. There are still a few areas that need to be modified：

1. The abstract section needs to focus on elaborating innovative points, including the shortcomings of existing methods and the progress of future research.

2. The font in the figure is small, as shown in Figure 2

3. The references are relatively outdated, and it is recommended to cite more papers from the past three years.

4. There are few discussion sections, which should be the focus of this article.

5. It is suggested that the framework of the article needs to be adjusted, with more content in the second part and less content in the third part.

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Thank you for your positive assessment of our work and your suggestions to improve the manuscript. In accordance with them, we have made the following changes to the article:

- We have improved the abstract to be more indicative of the purpose and results of our review;

- we have enlarged Figure 2 to make it more readable;

- we have changed the article's framework slightly so that there is more content in the second section and less in the third section; to this end, we have moved the discussion section to the end of each subsection to summarize it, while in the third section we have proposed an orginal classification of the methods described earlier, which summarizes the results of our study and integrates the research perspective.

Since the topic is niche and there are few publications on the sustainability of rail transportation in the context of environmental protection (especially in terms of collisions with animals and habitat fragmentation), we provided as much relevant literature as we could.

Reviewer 2 Report

Railways have long been acknowledged as one of the most environmentally friendly modes of mass transportation, offering lower carbon emissions, enhanced energy efficiency, and reduced congestion compared to other forms of transportation. However, there are still numerous challenges that need to be addressed in order to ensure continuous sustainability in terms of environmental impacts, particularly with regard to wildlife and habitat preservation. The objective of this scientific paper is to delve into the concept of sustainability within the context of railways by providing a comprehensive analysis of their environmental influences. Through an examination of key strategies, technologies, and policy frameworks, this research aims to shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with achieving sustainability within the global railway industry. The content of the review is complete and meets the requirements of journal publication. The only suggestion is to add some tables in the paper to reinforce part of your argument.

Author Response

Thank you for your positive assessment of our work and your suggestions to improve the manuscript. In accordance with them, we have made the following change to the article: we added table in the discussion section were we have proposed an original classification of the methods described earlier, which summarizes the results of our study and integrates the research perspective. We hope it will reinforce our arguments and make them clear for the receiver.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review the article „Environmental impact evaluation as a key element in ensuring sustainable development of rail transport”. Below my remarks:

• Authors have chosen an interesting and current topic: sustainable development of rail transport;
• In the abstract, the main research findings should be included;
• In the final part of the Introduction, please describe synthetically what the individual sections of the article contain;
• Literature review is correct, while it could still be expanded;
• There is a definite lack of scientific presentation of research methodology and results. The results are purely descriptive in form. It might be worth looking in available databases (e.g., Scopus, Web of Science, or others) for articles related to the impact of railways on the environment. Then, create a table indicating the factors, environmental elements that the railway affects, with a reference to the authors and works that identified them.
• Discussion of results should be supported by works from other authors in this field.
• Generally, the article is interesting, but it lacks a scientific tone. In its current form, it constitutes a sort of extended student report.

Author Response

Thank you for your review of our article and suggestions for improvement.

According to them, we have made the following changes:

- we have included information about the purpose and results of our research in the abstract;

- at the end of the introduction, we added synthetic information about the content of the following sections and the framework of the article;

- we expanded the bibliography, including the addition of a publication on literature research methodology;

- we added a whole paragraph about the research methodology, its form and expected results, including an explanation of why we prefer descriptive rather than tabular or index form;

- we proposed in the discussion section our own table summarizing our results, including classifications of areas of negative railroad impact and methods of reducing them.

Since the topic is niche and there are few publications on the sustainability of rail transportation in the context of environmental protection (especially in terms of collisions with animals and habitat fragmentation), we provided as much relevant literature as we could. We decided not to create a table comparing the purpose and content of the articles, due to the scarcity of data and the frequent inability to comprehensively determine, compare and classify factors.

It was also difficult to refer in the discussion to the results of the analyses of other authors on this topic, due to the fact that this is the first such synthesis of the problem of environmental aspects in the context of the strategy of sustainable development of rail transportation. The numbers and effectiveness of the methods were referred to in the subsections devoted to the topic. However, we have proposed an original presentation of the areas of influence of selected negative elements of the exploatation of rail vehicles and the development of transport networks, as well as a classification of methods to reduce their impact. We believe that this will allow more effective integration of various types of mitigation measures, primarily by including them in transport development strategies.

We hope that you will accept our explanations and that the improvements made will give the more scientific tone to our article that you desire.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I appreciate your attention to the feedback and the revisions made to the manuscript.