City-Level Integrated Traffic Management with User Preferences Under Connected Environment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.        Make sure to include citations in the first and second sentences to strengthen the introductory statements. These references will help support the context you’re setting right from the start.

2.        The introduction currently contains an excessive amount of review material. Move this content to the literature review section, as the introduction should briefly outline your study. Start with the background, clarify the problem statement, describe your study's approach to solving this issue, and specify the anticipated contributions. While some elements are present, others need elaboration.

3.        Clarify the rationale behind dividing the road network into four levels. Explain the basis for this categorization, including any specific standards, criteria, or contextual factors considered during segmentation.

4.        Correct the grammar on line 150. Suggested correction: “The data shows a significant increase in efficiency.”

5.        Ensure that Equation 4 is properly cited within the text to reference its derivation or prior sources if applicable.

6.        Adjust the title of Figure 2 for clarity. Suggested revision: “Figure 2. Results Illustrating Data Analysis for Road Segmentation.”

7.        Move Table 1 to the end of Section 4.2 to maintain a logical flow between text and data, improving readability.

 

8.        The figures in the results section are well-done visually, but there is a need for more discussion. Add interpretive commentary about what these figures suggest, how they support or contrast with existing literature, and their implications.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

no

Author Response

Please see the detailed replies to all comments in the attached word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Title: City-level Integrated Traffic Management with User Preferences under Connected Environment

Authors: Hao Yang, Kentaro Oguchi

MS. Ref. No. sustainability-3263257

 

    Dear Authors

    This study proposes an integrated traffic management system that takes into account user preferences in order to maximize each user's performance. In the system, connected automobiles are used to estimate traffic conditions and expenses based on various user preferences. The system will seek for multi-layer vehicle control instructions based on user choices for mobility, energy consumption, and driving comfort. Microscopic simulations were used to evaluate the system's effectiveness in reducing traffic congestion, lowering fuel consumption, and restricting turns. The findings show that applying the system can cut vehicle delays by up to 32%, fuel usage by 4%, and left and right turns by 24%. Furthermore, the article examines the impact of market shares of connected vehicles with varying preferences in order to assess their success at various stages of connected vehicle development. 

    The work has the potential to help develop innovative transportation services in future cities, as well as improve urban mobility and energy efficiency.

    The manuscript has the potential to be published in Sustainability. I recommend the manuscript for publication in the "Sustainability" in its current form.

    sincerely yours,

    Reviewer

Author Response

Please see the detailed replies to all comments in the attached word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study proposed an integrated traffic management system considering user preferences, which is a very important and interesting topic. However, the analysis results seem somewhat overestimated and require verification. Additionally, the academic and practical contributions of the study need improvement. Please refer to the following comments:

1. Introduction: The importance of various preferences is missing in the introduction. This needs to be addressed. Specifically, the introduction should include concrete examples and references related to different user preferences.

2. Literature Review: This section should be divided into at least two parts. One part is the Review of Integrated Traffic Management System already written by the authors. The other should include a scholarly review of user preferences. Furthermore, the implications section should clearly outline the limitations of previous research and the specific objectives of this study.

3. Methodology: The study focuses on three elements (mobility, energy, and comfort). However, the authors need to verify why these particular elements were chosen. Other factors such as punctuality, safety, cost, resilience, environment, and economics could also be important.

4. Experimental Design: The case study requires more detailed data on the experimental design. It is hard to understand how an optimization scenario resulted in more than a 30% reduction in travel time. Typically, new routes in transportation planning studies save around 10% of travel time. It seems the experimental design may not reflect real-world scenarios. Especially, the threshold for such improvements is based on the concept of highway capacity. I recommend referencing related previous studies for this: Congestion boundary approach for phase transitions in traffic flow; Effects of loop detector position on the macroscopic fundamental diagram.

5. Travel Distance vs Travel Time: Normally, travel distance and travel time are strongly correlated. However, in this study, there is a significant difference between the improvements in delay and travel distance for the preference 1 and 2 scenarios, which seems unreasonable. The authors need to justify this result.

6. Additionally, the 28% reduction in travel time for the scenario minimizing fuel consumption is similar to the result of preference 1 (minimizing travel time). Intuitively, preference 3 (minimizing fuel consumption) should show better performance. The authors should address this inconsistency.

7. Scenario Naming: In section 4.3, the mobility vs energy case study analyzes three scenarios, while the mobility vs comfort case study analyzes two scenarios. Even though these are different case studies, the scenario naming (preference 1-4) continues sequentially, which makes it difficult to follow. Clear differentiation is needed.

8. Table 2: The 24% reduction in vehicle turns seems unrealistic. This would imply that drivers today are making 24% unnecessary turns compared to CVs. This figure should be re-evaluated by referencing studies on autonomous driving systems, as the result appears exaggerated.

9. The study emphasizes the need for management considering multiple factors. However, a scenario that integrates all factors (mobility, energy, and comfort) was not analyzed. Since the weightings for all factors are already known, I recommend adding a scenario that minimizes the combined costs.

 

10. The study mentions that the MPR for each scenario was set at 5% or 10%, but the rationale behind this choice is unclear. MPR is a key variable, and there should be references or explanations to support its selection. Consideration of EV growth rates or other factors could provide a more solid foundation for MPR settings. This should be explained further.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 The English could be improved to more clearly express the research.

Author Response

Please see the detailed replies to all comments in the attached word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study is devoted to solving a relevant problem - planning the movement of connected vehicles using the developed integrated traffic management system taking into account user preferences. In the abstract, the authors provide the relevance of the problem; briefly describe its status, research methods, and results. The title of the article and keywords adequately reflect the content of the article.

In the introduction, the authors provide a rationale for the relevance of the topic within the framework of studies by different authors devoted to similar topics, and also provide the structure of the article. The second section is devoted to the description of the integrated traffic management system for monitoring CV at several levels of city networks. In the third section, the authors describe how the system is expanded to take into account user preferences. In the fourth section, the authors evaluate the proposed system at the level of the urban road network with different user preferences and analyse the impact of MPR CV with different preferences. In the final section, the authors summarize the results of this article and offer some future recommendations.

The article has been prepared in accordance with the instructions for authors, corresponds to the topic it researches and publishes. The theoretical and practical conclusions are illustrated with figures and tables of sufficient quality. The list of references is sufficient in terms of the number of sources. In our opinion, the article corresponds to the topic of "improving road traffic with intelligent solutions" and corresponds to the type of Preliminary study.

Comment.

Despite the relevance and timeliness of the study, there are some comments:

1. In our opinion, although the authors indicated the structure of the study, it is necessary to formulate the goal and objectives, as well as the practical application of the model, more clearly. In our opinion, the adequacy of the model is also not proven in the article, since the results of its verification and validation are not provided.

2. How are the factors influencing the parameters of the movement of connected vehicles taken into account (such as flow parameters, weather conditions, road surface conditions, the presence of speed bumps and unregulated pedestrian crossings, etc.)?

3. Very low percentage of new studies (in the last 5 years) in the reference list. Since the percentage of connected vehicles is increasing every year, in our opinion, the authors should include more new studies, that dedicated to the CV traffic management topic.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Please see the detailed replies to all comments in the attached word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

accept

Author Response

Thank you very much for the support. We made some minor revisions based on the comments from the editor to further enhance the paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors addressed all my concerns.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the previous comments. We also made some minor revisions based on the comments from the editor to further enhance the paper.