Evaluation of Service Quality in Passenger Transport with a Focus on Liner Maritime Passenger Transport—A Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Once again, I thank the authors for the opportunity to review their manuscript. I appreciate the effort and time the authors invested in adding new sections. As a reviewer, I believe these sections undoubtedly represent a significant step in the right direction and substantially enhance the overall quality of the manuscript.

Unfortunately, the text still exhibits its initial flaw, namely, long passages and parts of the article that are entirely unnecessary as they do not contribute anything new to the general state of knowledge. Prime examples of extraneous content include Figures 2, 4, 5, 6, and Table 2, as well as the entire section referencing them. In my assessment, this stems from the improper formulation of the research problem. The original lack of a specific research problem has rendered the article chaotic, and the presented considerations do not lead to clear and meaningful conclusions, as evidenced by the content of the 'Discussion and Conclusion' section.

Among the numerous issues in the 'Discussion and Conclusion' section, I would like to point out the fragment: 'A systematic review of the relevant articles was carried out in order to select and list types of methods used.' Following this fragment, there are no conclusions regarding the methods used to measure service quality, which is crucial for the reader.

I also suggest that the authors revisit what elements a scientific article should include. This will help avoid simple errors, such as placing a description of the study, as seen in the fragment: 'The authors selected 80 relevant publications on service quality evaluation in passenger transport, 33 of these focusing on service quality evaluation in passenger transport and, finally, 5 publications on service quality evaluation in liner maritime passenger transport,' in the 'Discussion and Conclusion' section. In fact, the entire 'Discussion and Conclusion' part is flawed because it consists of fragments that should have been placed in earlier sections of the article.

In conclusion, I advise the authors to create a new article using the existing fragments instead of adding new sections to the current text. This will allow a reevaluation of the research problem the authors intended to address, enabling them to reconsider what valuable insights they want to convey to their readers. Statements like 'Countries dealing with service quality and its evaluation methods include China, Greece, Taiwan, Croatia, Italy, Canada, Poland, and Montenegro' or 'When examining the research area, most articles were in the fields of Transportation, Business and Economics, and Social Sciences' are insufficient considering the interesting and complex nature of the service quality research field.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank You for Your comments and time You invested in reviewing this paper, again... We followed suggestions and tried to answer each. They helped us a lot in discerning essential facts from unimportant ones.

Once again, I thank the authors for the opportunity to review their manuscript. I appreciate the effort and time the authors invested in adding new sections. As a reviewer, I believe these sections undoubtedly represent a significant step in the right direction and substantially enhance the overall quality of the manuscript.

Thank You for giving us another opportunity!

Unfortunately, the text still exhibits its initial flaw, namely, long passages and parts of the article that are entirely unnecessary as they do not contribute anything new to the general state of knowledge. Prime examples of extraneous content include Figures 2, 4, 5, 6, and Table 2, as well as the entire section referencing them. In my assessment, this stems from the improper formulation of the research problem. The original lack of a specific research problem has rendered the article chaotic, and the presented considerations do not lead to clear and meaningful conclusions, as evidenced by the content of the 'Discussion and Conclusion' section.

Thank You for Your comment. Your suggestion has been accepted. We excluded named Figures and Table and focused only on the given aim of the paper. We believe it led us to meaningful conclusion now.

Among the numerous issues in the 'Discussion and Conclusion' section, I would like to point out the fragment: 'A systematic review of the relevant articles was carried out in order to select and list types of methods used.' Following this fragment, there are no conclusions regarding the methods used to measure service quality, which is crucial for the reader.

Thank You for Your comment. We added clear sentences that follow the work (paper) in Discussion and Conclusion, i.e. methods that were used.

I also suggest that the authors revisit what elements a scientific article should include. This will help avoid simple errors, such as placing a description of the study, as seen in the fragment: 'The authors selected 80 relevant publications on service quality evaluation in passenger transport, 33 of these focusing on service quality evaluation in passenger transport and, finally, 5 publications on service quality evaluation in liner maritime passenger transport,' in the 'Discussion and Conclusion' section. In fact, the entire 'Discussion and Conclusion' part is flawed because it consists of fragments that should have been placed in earlier sections of the article.

Your suggestion has been accepted. Certain fragments from Discussion and Conclusion have been placed in earlier sections of the paper. We focused more on the main points of the paper.

In conclusion, I advise the authors to create a new article using the existing fragments instead of adding new sections to the current text. This will allow a reevaluation of the research problem the authors intended to address, enabling them to reconsider what valuable insights they want to convey to their readers. Statements like 'Countries dealing with service quality and its evaluation methods include China, Greece, Taiwan, Croatia, Italy, Canada, Poland, and Montenegro' or 'When examining the research area, most articles were in the fields of Transportation, Business and Economics, and Social Sciences' are insufficient considering the interesting and complex nature of the service quality research field.

Thank You for Your comment. Your suggestion has been accepted. We created a new article using the existing fragments and changed a paper a lot. Named statements are excluded, as You suggested, because they certainly offer no significance to the paper.

Everything added or changed due to Your comments is highlighted through the text in yellow.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

The authors followed the given recommendations to a sufficient extent and improved the article so that it could now be approved for publication.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank You for your approval! We also improved mentioned parts (under ‘’Can be improved’’) in the text.

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

This paper mainly introduces the methods used to evaluate the quality of passenger transport service in the core set of Web of Science, with special attention to the liner marine passenger transport. The paper also classifies them according to their research fields, publication years, research countries, modes of transportation and the number of citations. The results show that the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is most commonly used. In addition, most articles are published in transportation, business, and economics. There are 20 countries that deal with the quality of liner maritime passenger services. The majority of published articles on this topic were recorded in 2018,2022 and 2023.

The classification of the articles on the evaluation of passenger transport service quality is considered in detail, but it is not closely related to the core of the article, that is, the method of the evaluation of service quality.

(1) In the definition of passenger transport service quality (SQ) in section 1.1, SQ is mainly explained, but the meaning of SQ in passenger transport is not explained in detail.

(2) In section 2.2, all of the 33 selected articles used quantitative and qualitative methods or a combination of both. In the analysis of results, the quantitative methods were described with emphasis, while the qualitative methods were simply omitted.

(3) In Section 2.2, the statement 'Most of the articles from Table 1 are categorized into one research area (53%), but certain articles are also categorized into more than one research area according to the WoS (47%), as shown in Figure 1.' is incorrect. It should be revised to 'as shown in Figure 2.'Likewise, the sentence 'Figure 4 represents the search according to the number of articles published in a certain year.' is incorrect and should be corrected to 'Figure 3 represents…'

(4) The literature review may be improved by citing more relevant papers. Just list several as follows.

AI-Empowered Speed Extraction via Port-Like Videos for Vehicular Trajectory Analysis

A hybrid visualization model for knowledge mapping: scientometrics, SAOM, and SAO

Good

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank You for Your comments. We tried to explain each as well to improve everything suggested. We hope the paper is better now.

This paper mainly introduces the methods used to evaluate the quality of passenger transport service in the core set of Web of Science, with special attention to the liner marine passenger transport. The paper also classifies them according to their research fields, publication years, research countries, modes of transportation and the number of citations. ‘The results show that the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is most commonly used. In addition, most articles are published in transportation, business, and economics. There are 20 countries that deal with the quality of liner maritime passenger services. The majority of published articles on this topic were recorded in 2018,2022 and 2023.’

The classification of the articles on the evaluation of passenger transport service quality is considered in detail, but it is not closely related to the core of the article, that is, the method of the evaluation of service quality.

Your suggestion has been accepted. We focused only on the given aim of the paper so the mentioned sentences are excluded.

(1) In the definition of passenger transport service quality (SQ) in section 1.1, SQ is mainly explained, but the meaning of SQ in passenger transport is not explained in detail.

Your suggestion has been accepted. The SQ in passenger transport is also added from lines: 84-99.

(2) In section 2.2, all of the 33 selected articles used quantitative and qualitative methods or a combination of both. In the analysis of results, the quantitative methods were described with emphasis, while the qualitative methods were simply omitted.

Thank You for Your comment. They were omitted because there is a sentence that states which qualitative methods were used  (line 196) and the one that states that there were no papers that used only qualitative method (line 199).

(3) In Section 2.2, the statement 'Most of the articles from Table 1 are categorized into one research area (53%), but certain articles are also categorized into more than one research area according to the WoS (47%), as shown in Figure 1.' is incorrect. It should be revised to 'as shown in Figure 2.'Likewise, the sentence 'Figure 4 represents the search according to the number of articles published in a certain year.' is incorrect and should be corrected to 'Figure 3 represents…'

Thank You for Your comment. You have right but since the reviewer 1 suggested excluding certain Figures and Tables, they were removed.

(4) The literature review may be improved by citing more relevant papers.

Thank You for Your comment. I certainly added it in the lines 65 as well as in references.

Everything added or changed due to Your comments is highlighted through the text in green.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

At the beginning, I would like to congratulate the authors on their perseverance in improving their text. It's impossible not to notice that with each successive version, it is getting better. However, there is still room for improvement to fulfill the promise that the authors make to their readers through the content of the title of their article.

Main Attention:

As the authors themselves point out, "Besides, service quality in passenger transport comprises many factors such as speed, reliability, comfort, convenience, safety, special services and innovation, system efficiency, pollution, etc." Furthermore, in the abstract, it is mentioned that "The evaluation of service quality in passenger transport is crucial to ensure acceptable quality standards for users and to improve the services offered to passengers and travelers. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the methods used to evaluate service quality in passenger transport in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection, with a particular focus on liner maritime passenger transport." Therefore, it would be worthwhile to add explanatory variables in Tables 1 and 2, reflecting the consideration in individual articles that, according to their authors, influence the assessment of service quality (allowing the evaluation of the explained variable, which is the quality of services). This would enable the formulation of additional insights from the literature review, such as the majority of authors assessing service quality through XXX, XYZ. According to the analyzed studies, XXX and XYZ have the greatest impact on service quality.

In summary, I believe that the article titled "Evaluation of Service Quality in Passenger Transport with Regard to Liner Maritime Passenger Transport—A Systematic Review" should provide the reader with at least two pieces of information:

1) The methods used to assess service quality (preferably indicating which one is generally the best or the best under specific conditions). The current content of the article provides this knowledge in a limited manner.

2) The factors (explanatory variables) utilized in service quality studies (in models used for assessing service quality).

If possible, it would be valuable to add a third piece of information regarding which explanatory variables in the models have proven to be most significant (whether for respondents, the comfort of travel, time, or cost is more crucial for assessing service quality?).

Minor Note:

The order of articles presented in Table 1 seems to be random. If this is the case, it would be beneficial to organize it, for example, from the newest to the oldest.

Author Response

At the beginning, I would like to congratulate the authors on their perseverance in improving their text. It's impossible not to notice that with each successive version, it is getting better. However, there is still room for improvement to fulfill the promise that the authors make to their readers through the content of the title of their article.

Dear reviewer, thank You!

Main Attention:

As the authors themselves point out, "Besides, service quality in passenger transport comprises many factors such as speed, reliability, comfort, convenience, safety, special services and innovation, system efficiency, pollution, etc." Furthermore, in the abstract, it is mentioned that "The evaluation of service quality in passenger transport is crucial to ensure acceptable quality standards for users and to improve the services offered to passengers and travelers. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the methods used to evaluate service quality in passenger transport in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection, with a particular focus on liner maritime passenger transport." Therefore, it would be worthwhile to add explanatory variables in Tables 1 and 2, reflecting the consideration in individual articles that, according to their authors, influence the assessment of service quality (allowing the evaluation of the explained variable, which is the quality of services). This would enable the formulation of additional insights from the literature review, such as the majority of authors assessing service quality through XXX, XYZ. According to the analyzed studies, XXX and XYZ have the greatest impact on service quality.

Thank You for Your comment. Your suggestions have been accepted. All articles were read again, and Variables were excerpted and added in Table 1 and 2. Their greatest impact is given in lines 223-229.

In summary, I believe that the article titled "Evaluation of Service Quality in Passenger Transport with Regard to Liner Maritime Passenger Transport—A Systematic Review" should provide the reader with at least two pieces of information:

1) The methods used to assess service quality (preferably indicating which one is generally the best or the best under specific conditions). The current content of the article provides this knowledge in a limited manner.

Your suggestion has been accepted, lines 229-235.

2) The factors (explanatory variables) utilized in service quality studies (in models used for assessing service quality).

Thank you! This is commented in the lines 215-222.

       If possible, it would be valuable to add a third piece of information regarding which explanatory variables in the models have proven to be most significant (whether for respondents, the comfort of travel, time, or cost is more crucial for assessing service quality?).

 We believe we answered it through the lines 225-229.

Minor Note:

The order of articles presented in Table 1 seems to be random. If this is the case, it would be beneficial to organize it, for example, from the newest to the oldest.

Thank you for this great remark, we organized it better!

All added parts are marked in yellow.

Best regards!

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

The authors have dealt with all my concerns.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank You for your approval!

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much for the opportunity to review the text. Below, I have summarized my main observations regarding its content:

In my opinion, the research goal, despite being vaguely formulated, has not been achieved. Currently, the text implies that the aim of this article is to „to give an overview of articles focusing on evaluation of service quality (SQ) in passenger transport in Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) with a particular focus on liner maritime passenger transport.”. As a reader, I would expect the article to provide information on, at the very least:

·         The methods used to assess the quality of transport services in various studies.

·         How explanatory and response variables were formulated during the research.

·         The relationships identified during the studies, such as the impact of service quality on various factors and what factors influences service quality.

·         How different authors define service quality in transport.

·         Whether there is a widely accepted definition of service quality in transport among most researchers.

·         Whether there is a commonly accepted methodology for studying service quality.

·         The statistical tools commonly used to assess service quality and its impact on response variables.

·         The issues encountered and reported by scientists researching the assessment of service quality in transport.

In summary, the information presented in the introduction, in my opinion, is far more significant and interesting than that found in the "Discussion and conclusion" section, which should not be the case. The presented text does not resemble a "Systematic Review" but rather a collection of bibliometric data that can be used to create a systematic review of research on the evaluation of service quality in transport. Therefore, I recommend rejecting the proposed text and encourage the authors to conduct a thorough review of the identified articles on the quality of transport services and to critically evaluate them with regard to the elements mentioned above and any others they consider essential.

The sentence "The research found that the authors of the articles combined qualitative and quantitative methods" suggests that the work was initiated but concluded at too early a stage, providing overly general and consequently unimportant and uninteresting results. At present, I believe that limiting the information to research area, publication year, country of research, mode of transport, number of citations, and methods used is insufficient to deem the text suitable for publication.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors deal with the review of WoS papers that analyze the concept of quality services as perceived by maritime passengers. From the search keywords they applied and the whole writing, it could be understood they haven't explored this concept in depth.

They present a very hasty and superficial job with the key content discussed in the articles studied. We learn nothing about services and how they differ from physical products and the challenges of measuring service quality. They briefly present the SERVQUAL tool, which is the most widespread, but not at all the only one among similar tools, no criticisms of its use, etc.

For keywords, they decided to search the combination "service quality evaluation". If they had included Google Scholar in the preliminary research, they would have quickly found that there are approximately 5,920,000 hits for this combination, 6,130,000 for the combination "service quality perception" and 6,920,000 hits for the combination "service quality perception".

From the accumulated portfolio, they then fairly correctly extracted the methodological etc. characteristics of published articles.

There is almost no discussion or connection with the theoretical starting points, so the analysis is, more or less, an end in itself. Overall, the given contribution to scholarship doesn't justify the publication... 

English language is fine.