Reliability Analysis of Technical Means of Transport

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is interesting but it is very theoretical. The examples shown are of limited value as they are basic cases with very little complexity. Two things must be corrected in this paper:

1) a more thorough literature review is needed. The references discussed are very limited (in geographical spread). Seriously, research does exist internationally and this must be visited

2) an example of realistic nature and complexity should be included in order to prove the validity of the theory.

Author Response

All responses are decsribed in the attached file: Response to reviewer 1- MDPI (word file)

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper evaluates the reliability of technical means of transport by applying some theoretical models of reliability on a sample of few data of a selected military unit.

Besides, while this paper seems like a worthwhile effort, it presents many drawbacks and I have several troubles of the current form (as detailed below). First, this paper should be better motivated. Second, the contributions of this paper to the existing literature are not clearly defined. Third, the model is not explained with particular care. For example, the content in pagg. 3 and 4 is totally unclear for me because there is no detailed explanation on how the different equations interplay each other and why they are relevant for the overall analysis. Fourth, no comparison is provided with other models proposed in the literature to evaluate if your models are good.

Therefore, much more work is required to convince me and potential readers about the contributions of this study and a more sophisticated approach would be wished for a publication in this journal. I believe that this paper must be improved before fitting for publication.

Comment 1

In the abstract, authors put the motivations after the presentation of the paper objective. A good abstract should be organised as follows: motivations, objective, results and usefulness of results. Please, consider to revise it.

Comment 2

The concept of reliability is used throughout the manuscript, but it is never defined what is the reliability in this paper. In transportation, the reliability may assume several definitions and it is a very wide topic, which includes components and services. For instance, in public transport “the reliability can be viewed as the dependability of a transit service in terms of multidimensional aspects, such as waiting and riding times, passenger loads, vehicle quality (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7519088). In your paper, no definition of reliability is provided, therefore is it unclear to me what is the current definition of reliability regarding the current problem. Moreover, what do you mean of reliability of technical means of transport?

Comment 3

In my opinion, this paper is not clearly motivated. Why your work is relevant for your field? What are the gaps with the current literature? There is some discussion in the Introduction Section, but it is difficult for me to enucleate the motivations, because this section is presented in terms of definitions and not in term of reasons to undertake your study. Thus, a finer motivation to illustrate the importance of this work is required.

 

Comment 4

The contributions are not clearly well-established. What do the authors propose which differentiate their work with the current literature? The reviewer does not find answers to this question throughout the manuscript. For example, the authors strictly rely on the existing literature, in fact they use some references to describe some concepts, but I do not understand where the novelties are. Indeed, the models rely on several equations presented by other authors. In this way, it is difficult to see what is original in this work as compared to the current literature. Thus, which are the novelties? The authors should emphasized what is new in their paper.

 

Comment 5

The literature review is spread all over the paper. Part is in Section 1, another part in Section 2, some part in Section 3, etc. To better understand what already exists and what is new, the literature review should be more concise and possibly confined in one section, thus the reader can be better understand the contributions of the paper. I recommend authors to provide a separate literature review section and highlight the research gaps.

 

Comment 6

In Section 2 and 3, authors describe several models to measure the quadrature. Can the authors explain the need for describing these models? And what are the strengths and drawbacks of each method? These questions are relevant to avoid confusion in the reading of this paper.

 

Comment 7

I had several troubles with the models presented in Sections 3 and 4, which is difficult to follow.

More precisely:

1. Overall model

• The methodology should be clarified and justified, because it represents the heart of the paper. The description should be detailed enough to make for a possible replication of the proposed method from interested users. The most important equations should be clarified and justified.
• Cannot Sections 3 and 4 be condensed together because these represent modelling issues? Moreover, Section 3 presents many contents related to state of the art (e.g., references from 16 to 25), which are not novelties in this paper.

2. Understanding of the model:

• 3 and 4 are totally unclear for me. Moreover, the authors introduced other expressions without provide a careful explanation. For instance which is node t₀?
• Several equations are introduced without sufficiently motivated reasons.

3. Notations:

• The terminology is not well-defined or redefined. For example, what does represent?
• (22) contain the following statement “Błąd! W dokumencie nie ma tekstu o podanym stylu.”

 

Comment 8

No comparison is provided with other results in the literature.

 

Comment 9

In the conclusions, the authors should elaborate on implications of their results and possible future works. They are not discussed or, in my opinion, they are not sufficiently clear.

Author Response

All responses are decsribed in the attached file: Response to reviewer 2- MDPI (word file).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much for the comments, it can now be accepted.

Author Response

Many thanks for all your supportive hints making the paper ready for publication.

Reviewer 2 Report

I read the revised paper. The authors made a great effort to revise the manuscript and addressed almost all my comments. This paper is improved, to me. However, few further improvements still need before it fits for publication.

Previous comments

C 1 -> Revise

Please remove the following sentences in the abstract ”The introductory part contains a review of the literature related to transport system reliability. It discusses the most important definitions associated with modelling the reliability of non-renewable objects” and “The paper ends with a summary and indicated direction of further research.” because they concern the organisation of the manuscript and are appropriate here.

C 2 -> Revise

Now the concept is clearer than the previous version and it is good having implemented the literature review. However, when discuss the literature on transportation from the management at engineering and operation stage you can add the following paper, because it provides several facets of reliability from this perspective.

• Barabino, B., Di Francesco, M., & Mozzoni, S. (2016). An offline framework for the diagnosis of time reliability by automatic vehicle location data. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 18(3), 583-594.

When discuss the literature on transportation from a passenger's perspective, you can add the following paper because, reliability is not matter of delay only.

• Barabino, B., Lai, C., Casari, C., Demontis, R., & Mozzoni, S. (2016). Rethinking transit time reliability by integrating automated vehicle location data, passenger patterns, and web tools. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 18(4), 756-766.

Moreover, both papers were published on high influential journals that help further reinforce your paper.

C 3->OK

C 4->OK

C 5->OK

C 6-> OK

 

C 7-> Revise

Section 2.1 must be removed because your paper is a scientific article. Lines from 131 to 150 seem useful as a guideline on how use a software. You may tell few lines of this software, when present your results.

Moreover, I still several troubles with the equations presented in Sections 2 and 3. It is still unclear on how the different equations interplay each other and why they are relevant for the overall analysis. I recommend clarify this point. Perhaps a flowchart may help for this task.

C 8-> OK

C 9-> OK

Author Response

Many thanks for all your supportive hints making the paper ready for publication.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors further improved the paper. From the original submission, the paper is greatly improved!

To me, the paper can be accepted.