Sustainable Approach to Nonurban Road Network Maintenance Management: Herzegovina-Neretva County, B&H Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study proposes an approach  to nonurban road network maintenance management based on the integration of multi-criteria decision making methods and methods of monitoring and control. Some comments can be helpful to improve the quality.

(1)  It is necessary to clearify the innovation and contribution of this study in the section "Introduction". There have been many existing studies on the topic, so what is the research gap that this study want to address and how to address it?

(2) The study propose a sustainable approach. How does this study can improve the sustainability of nonurban road network maintenance management? I did not see any clear explanation.

(3) The hierarchical goals only include technical, economical, and social values. Should it consider the envirnoment and other sustainability values? Also, 8 of 11 criteria are technical. only 1 belongs to economic goal and 2 belong to social goal. Are these criteria reasonable? how are these criteria selected?

(4) Figure resolutions need to be imporved. they are not very clear.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for provision of remarks and suggestions. The authors hope that corrections and further explanations which are provided (within the manuscript and within response to reviewer - please see the attachment) according to your comments and suggestions improved quality of the manuscript up to the satisfactory level and we are hopefully this manuscript will be accepted for publication in Applied Sciences. 

The concept of this manuscript provides a completely new decision support concept (DSC) applicable to the non-urban road maintenance management which consists of sub-models and procedures that link these sub-models into a unique and original sustainable approach. Proposed sub-models based on logical and managerially justified connection of multicriteria methods TOPSIS, AHP and Earned Value Analysis (EVA) into a meaningful and useful whole give an original, concise and critical overview of the author's research area.

It is especially important for us to verify the stated results of this doctoral research with an international review in a recognized journal such as Applied Sciences in order to confirm the correctness of the set direction of the research. Therefore, we are grateful for all the received and implemented suggestions of reviewers because they greatly strengthen our work and improve our research.

Sincerely, 

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper proposes a new approach to evaluate the management of the non-urban roads. Please see the comments below:

 1) What are the differences and similarities of the management between urban and non-urban roads? This is suggested to be discussed in the Introduction part.

 2) It is also suggested that more details of the roads in the case study can be presented in the paper, such as the road class, lanes, traffic condition, etc.

 3) The weights in the sub-model were determined by several expert groups. However, there is not enough information about the groups. What’s the technical background of the experts or the stakeholders? Were the experts randomly selected and included in each group?

 4) How to measure the criteria before the scaling? Did the authors use a Likert scale survey? Or measuring the actual value of the criteria and then scaling them to a range between 0 and 1?

 5) Recently, the road audit is also necessary in many countries and regions. This could be considered in maintaining the roads. However, if the audit information is not available in the case study, it could be stated as a limitation.

 6) The figure 4 is quite vague, please replace it with a clearer one.

 7) The limitations and future directions should mentioned in the paper. For example, the priority ranking for road network maintenance should consider traffic crashes or crash risk, and it merits additional studies. Some useful references are presented as follows.

A multivariate method for evaluating safety from conflict extremes in real time

Highway Safety Analytics and Modeling Techniques and Methods for Analyzing Crash Data

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for provision of remarks and suggestions. The authors hope that corrections and further explanations which are provided (within the manuscript and within response to reviewer - please see the attachment) according to your comments and suggestions improved quality of the manuscript up to the satisfactory level and we are hopefully this manuscript will be accepted for publication in Applied Sciences. 

The concept of this manuscript provides a completely new decision support concept (DSC) applicable to the non-urban road maintenance management which consists of sub-models and procedures that link these sub-models into a unique and original sustainable approach. Proposed sub-models based on logical and managerially justified connection of multicriteria methods TOPSIS, AHP and Earned Value Analysis (EVA) into a meaningful and useful whole give an original, concise and critical overview of the author's research area.

It is especially important for us to verify the stated results of this doctoral research with an international review in a recognized journal such as Applied Sciences in order to confirm the correctness of the set direction of the research. Therefore, we are grateful for all the received and implemented suggestions of reviewers because they greatly strengthen our work and improve our research.

Sincerely, 

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I'm satisified with the revision.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your suggestions that raised the level of this manuscript as well as for the effort and time you invested in reviewing this manuscript.

Sincerely,

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

As per the review comments, while the authors have revised most places, the recommended references are not discussed and mentioned in the second submission.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for provision of remarks and suggestions. The authors hope that corrections and further explanations which are provided (within the manuscript and within response to reviewer - please see the attachment) according to your comments and suggestions improved quality of the manuscript up to the satisfactory level and we are hopefully this manuscript will be accepted for publication in Applied Sciences.

Sincerely,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf