Proportion-Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons Causing Severe Crashes
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Section 1 provides the problem and background, however, towards the end of this section, you simply mentioned what this paper is all about without properly giving the major contribution of the work. It seems that you will just be repeating the works of other previously published papers. I suggest you provide the readers with the main contribution of the work and clearly specify how these will be different from the others.
2. You also mentioned "Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process" in your title, yet there was no clear discussion on how this method was used for this work.
3. You mentioned PBAHP in Section 2 as a literature review. However, how is this work different from these review? This is important since in Section 1, you did not mention how you will solve your problem.
4. What is the right figure of Figure 2 represent? Please fix the caption of Figure 2, too, so that it will be clear.
5. In Table 1, there are column labels "Crash types" and "Crash Reasons". Are these two labels different? Also, breaking tables should be avoided if possible. Why not simply make this a pie chart like shown in Figure 1? It is easier to read and interpret. If you are still inclined with the table structure, then at least arrange the crash types and reasons from highest to lowest values.
6. You have a "Data Prepartion" section but you only showed the data. Where is the preparation here?
7. I do not understand Crash types. Isn't a collision always involving two objects? So, why is it that aside from collision, there are "hit animals", "hit pedestrians",..., etc.? These are all collisions, right?
8. Figures 4 and 5 are confusing. The upper block says "Crash Severity", but the bottom label is also Crash severity. Too confusing! Please draw in a clearer manner.
9. Line 302. Please check grammar. It should be "was" instead of "were". Please check all.
10. Section 4 does not provide any clear discussions on your equations. What do they mean? How were you able to just compute the ratio between two crash types? Are you saying that they are related? I find this illogical. Please explain. For example in (3), why would I need to get the ratio of crash type hit motorcycle and hit pedestrian? What does the value in (3) tell you in real life?
11. Are Table 1 and Figure 6 showing the same data but only in different format? Figure 6 is just the summarized form of Table 1. You are trying to place too many things here that do not provide new information, only the manner of presentation.
12. I do not understand "weights" in (1) and (2), more particularly how you arrived at their values. Your discussions on ALL your equations are very confusing. You just type in your equation and just let the reader understand how they are used. Please help us understand your work more easily.
13. What is "inconsistency" in the matrix found in Table 2? Why is that there are ratios found in Table 2 instead of their equivalent value, e.g., 1/2.65?
14. Have you tried removing "others" and just proceed with all the crash types and reasons for your Table 2? I do not understand why you simply grouped the other categories into "others" and just leave the other categories as is. Needs further explanation.
15. Line 333 is very obvious just by simply looking at your table 1. Figure 6 should also show the same finding because just like what I have mentioned earlier, Table 1 and Figure 6 are just the same, correct? This comment also goes with Table 3. Honestly, without further processing, Table 1 should also give you the same findings, right? So, what's new?
16. Ranking of the crash types and reasons can simply done by looking at the raw data and simply placing them in descending order. I do not get the idea of applying a method and would simply give me no new meaning to the data.
17. What is the difference between "fatal" and "serious injury"? There were no clear definitions of these two terms. They look the same to me from a medical perspective. Who labels an injury as either fatal or serious?
18. In general, just by looking at Table 1, i.e., without further processing, I can still rank the crash types and reasons and come up with your findings. I do not understand your hierarchical processing applied to this scenario and what advantages it provides or findings it gives.
1. Section 1 provides the problem and background, however, towards the end of this section, you simply mentioned what this paper is all about without properly giving the major contribution of the work. It seems that you will just be repeating the works of other previously published papers. I suggest you provide the readers with the main contribution of the work and clearly specify how these will be different from the others.
2. You also mentioned "Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process" in your title, yet there was no clear discussion on how this method was used for this work.
3. You mentioned PBAHP in Section 2 as a literature review. However, how is this work different from these review? This is important since in Section 1, you did not mention how you will solve your problem.
4. What is the right figure of Figure 2 represent? Please fix the caption of Figure 2, too, so that it will be clear.
5. In Table 1, there are column labels "Crash types" and "Crash Reasons". Are these two labels different? Also, breaking tables should be avoided if possible. Why not simply make this a pie chart like shown in Figure 1? It is easier to read and interpret. If you are still inclined with the table structure, then at least arrange the crash types and reasons from highest to lowest values.
6. You have a "Data Prepartion" section but you only showed the data. Where is the preparation here?
7. I do not understand Crash types. Isn't a collision always involving two objects? So, why is it that aside from collision, there are "hit animals", "hit pedestrians",..., etc.? These are all collisions, right?
8. Figures 4 and 5 are confusing. The upper block says "Crash Severity", but the bottom label is also Crash severity. Too confusing! Please draw in a clearer manner.
9. Line 302. Please check grammar. It should be "was" instead of "were". Please check all.
10. Section 4 does not provide any clear discussions on your equations. What do they mean? How were you able to just compute the ratio between two crash types? Are you saying that they are related? I find this illogical. Please explain. For example in (3), why would I need to get the ratio of crash type hit motorcycle and hit pedestrian? What does the value in (3) tell you in real life?
11. Are Table 1 and Figure 6 showing the same data but only in different format? Figure 6 is just the summarized form of Table 1. You are trying to place too many things here that do not provide new information, only the manner of presentation.
12. I do not understand "weights" in (1) and (2), more particularly how you arrived at their values. Your discussions on ALL your equations are very confusing. You just type in your equation and just let the reader understand how they are used. Please help us understand your work more easily.
13. What is "inconsistency" in the matrix found in Table 2? Why is that there are ratios found in Table 2 instead of their equivalent value, e.g., 1/2.65?
14. Have you tried removing "others" and just proceed with all the crash types and reasons for your Table 2? I do not understand why you simply grouped the other categories into "others" and just leave the other categories as is. Needs further explanation.
15. Line 333 is very obvious just by simply looking at your table 1. Figure 6 should also show the same finding because just like what I have mentioned earlier, Table 1 and Figure 6 are just the same, correct? This comment also goes with Table 3. Honestly, without further processing, Table 1 should also give you the same findings, right? So, what's new?
16. Ranking of the crash types and reasons can simply done by looking at the raw data and simply placing them in descending order. I do not get the idea of applying a method and would simply give me no new meaning to the data.
17. What is the difference between "fatal" and "serious injury"? There were no clear definitions of these two terms. They look the same to me from a medical perspective. Who labels an injury as either fatal or serious?
18. In general, just by looking at Table 1, i.e., without further processing, I can still rank the crash types and reasons and come up with your findings. I do not understand your hierarchical processing applied to this scenario and what advantages it provides or findings it gives.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1,
We would like to thank you for the comments on our manuscript titled “Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons and Types of Crashes Causing Severe Crashes”, ID: “applsci-2424987”. We have revised the manuscript carefully based on the constructive comments and suggestions given by you and the reviewers. All revisions have been highlighted in the revised manuscript. A complete list of the revisions in the revised version of the paper is given in subsequent pages. We would like to thank all of you for your support on improving both the content and the structure of the paper.
Regards,
Author 1 and Author 2
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons and Types of Crashes Causing Severe Crashes
The study addressed an important issue related to traffic accidents and their severity. Congratulations to the authors for your valuable work. My views on the study are given below.
· More clear results of the study should be given in the abstract part. Therefore, the abstract part should be rearranged. Readers should have a general knowledge of the work after reading the "abstract" section.
· The difference between the study conducted after the literature review and the current studies should be clearly demonstrated. In addition, the contribution and novelty of the study to the literature should be mentioned.
· The expression given for "maximum value of eigen vector" is incorrect. Please use the correct one. The formulations in the AHP process steps should be accurately described. Studies in the literature can be used (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2020.105771).
· The value of the AHP consistency ratio should be clearly stated. In addition, the criteria weights obtained as a result of the AHP method should be listed and given in the form of a table.
· How was the decision maker team formed while creating the AHP pairwise comparison matrices?
· The suitability of criterion weights for sensitivity analysis should be investigated. Thanks to the sensitivity analysis, the factors of the weight values of the criteria can be obtained.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
We would like to thank you for the comments on our manuscript titled “Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons and Types of Crashes Causing Severe Crashes”, ID: “applsci-2424987”. We have revised the manuscript carefully based on the constructive comments and suggestions given by you. All revisions have been highlighted in the revised manuscript. A complete list of the revisions in the revised version of the paper is given in subsequent pages. We would like to thank all of you for your support on improving both the content and the structure of the paper.
Regards,
Author 1 and Author 2
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
An interesting but average article. The results and methodology are not presented clearly enough. Not too clear how this method relates to others used in the world, which is different.Bibliography does not follow the format.Similarly, the text lacks appropriate references according to the guidelines.Formatting of tables incorrect. Lack of inclusion of the human operator.It may be worth considering the impact of the fall in accidents based on autonomous vehicles a direction for further work.Average article.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3,
We would like to thank you for the comments on our manuscript titled “Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons and Types of Crashes Causing Severe Crashes”, ID: “applsci-2424987”. We have revised the manuscript carefully based on the constructive comments and suggestions given by you. All revisions have been highlighted in the revised manuscript. A complete list of the revisions in the revised version of the paper is given in subsequent pages. We would like to thank all of you for your support on improving both the content and the structure of the paper.
Regards,
Author 1 and Author 2
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
1. The paper title is confusing. You want to determine types of crases causing severe crashes. Why not "Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons Causing Severe Crashes"?
2. Section I should include the main contributions of the work and not merely as an answer to the reviewer. Also, elaborate on your contributions, NOT simply placing it there. The elaborations will allow the readers to see what are the differences of your work from the others.
3. It is true that Section 4 is dedicated to your methodology. However, when you write your introduction, you have to present your plan of approach to solve the problem you wish to solve. I did not see it in your revised work. Plainly said, you must summarize your approach in this section and the elaboration will be further understood in Section 4.
4. Check on your grammar, e.g., "Ttraditional AHP methods, however, does not" ==> "Ttraditional AHP methods, however, do not".
5. The use of PBAHP in the Al Ahsa will definitely be limited because PBAHP have been used elsewhere. This is what I would want to see in your literature review. You might just be copying the methodology and just apply it in a different location. If that is the case, then, that does not consist of a noteworthy contribution to be published in a journal. Instead, you might want to use PBAHP in multiple cities and then develop a comparison or analysis.
6. In Section 2, you mainly focused on AHP and not on PBAHP. Do you claim that there were no studies who used PBAHP? If so, then, part of the literature review should also discuss the different variations of AHP.
7. Figures 4 and 5 must be fixed. There are missing words in your blocks.
8. In Figure 3, "Fetal" ==> "Fatal"?
9. There is no Table 2 in your new manuscript.
10. I understand equation (3) as it is only the ratio. What I do not understand is that why would you take the ratios of each of the causes. Obviously, the ratios will just tell you that one event is A times to happen than B. But, my question there is, why would you take the ratio of two events A and B? Are you telling me that they are related? You have to explain this empirically. It seems you just use the equation there.
11. I understand that PBAHP is just using ratio and proportions. What I do not understand is what is the novelty of this suggested method as opposed to the usual AHP. The way I look at this method is that you are trying to get the ratios of each of the causes of accidents. What I did not see is that why do we need to get the ratios? The answer to this question is not completely and clearly explained. Again, if A/B = 3, it follows that A happens 3x more often than B. However, does this follow in real life? You have to prove that not by the data that you have because it will give you 3.
12.In your tables, i really do not understand the numbers 1/0.25 for example. Again, why not simply place the decimal equivalent? You did not explain this format clearly.
13. How was normalization done? I did not see its equation or I missed it out because of your confusing writeup?
14. Figure 10 has two "Others". What does that mean?
15. This is my observation because PBAHP was not clearly explained or discussed. Without getting the ratio, I can simply get which criterion causes more accidents. PB is your just next step of relating them, but, you don't need the exact numbers here if you just need to tell which is the most probable reason for an accident. You only need the number if you want to be exact. This is the confusion of what you did when there were no discussion and related literature for PBAHP.
16. Your revised manuscript should be almost free from grammatical and figure errors. Why am I finding many errors still? It seems that this was revised haphazardly.
17. In Figure 10, what does the "combined weight" mean? In a fatal crash, what does a 0.15 mean for the entry "Hit motorcycle"? Again, you mentioned that "“Hit motorcycle” to cause a serious injury crash is at least 10% higher than any other crash type" but this is under the assumption that event A affects event B. I find this hard to accept because A and B are mutually exclusive, NOT unless you have proven in your work, which I have not seen.
18. In Table 7, why is the sum of of crash severity not equal to 1, i.e, 1.008 and 0.99?
19. Equations (6) and (7) were formed how? Also, how were these two utility equations verified?
If all these questions are not addressed in a more satisfactory submitted manuscript, a rejection will be given out.
There are still many subject-verb agreement errors. I thought you had this subjected to a rigorous checking?
Author Response
Revision (Round 2) Summary of Manuscript ID: “applsci-2424987”
Title: Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining
Prominent Reasons Causing Severe Crashes
Dear Reviewer 1,
We would like to thank you for the comments on our manuscript titled “Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons Causing Severe Crashes”, ID: “applsci-2424987”. We have again revised the manuscript carefully based on the constructive comments and suggestions given by you. All revisions have been highlighted in the revised manuscript. A complete list of the revisions in the revised version of the manuscript has been given in subsequent pages. We would like to thank all of you for your support on improving both the content and the structure of the manuscript.
Regards,
Author 1 and Author 2
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Ok
Author Response
Revision (Round 2) Summary of Manuscript ID: “applsci-2424987”
Title: Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining
Prominent Reasons Causing Severe Crashes
Dear Reviewer 3,
We would like to thank you for the comments on our manuscript titled “Proportion Based Analytical Hierarchy Process for Determining Prominent Reasons Causing Severe Crashes”, ID: “applsci-2424987”.
Regards,
Author 1 and Author 2
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
There are some answers that I do not agree, but, I think the other readers may find it useful in further research works. This is the value of research.
I will just rely on the MDPI services for this.
