Enabling Future Maritime Traffic Management: A Decentralized Architecture for Sharing Data in the Maritime Domain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General Assessment: The manuscript presents an interesting and valuable contribution to the field of maritime data management, particularly concerning the challenges of secure and sovereign data exchange in maritime operations. The study highlights the necessity of a data management system that supports maritime operational activities, addressing challenges such as connectivity issues and data sovereignty. The practical case study on maritime traffic management effectively demonstrates the application of the proposed architecture.

While the paper is well-structured and informative, there are several areas that require improvement to enhance its clarity and academic rigor.

Key Areas for Improvement:

1. Methodology Clarity:

   • The methodology section is not clearly highlighted. It is unclear whether the manuscript is primarily a review article or an original research study. If it is a review, this should be explicitly stated.

   • A more structured methodology description would help readers understand how the study was conducted, particularly how the research gap was identified and how the proposed system was evaluated.

2. Lack of Discussion Section:

   • The discussion section is rather limited and could be expanded to provide a critical analysis of the findings.

   • The implications of the proposed data management system should be further explored in relation to existing maritime data management frameworks.

   • Potential challenges and limitations should be discussed in more depth, along with suggestions for future research directions.

3. Abstract and Conclusion Structure:

   • The abstract lacks a clear structure outlining the study's objective, methodology, results, and contribution.

   • A well-defined abstract should include a concise summary of the research problem, approach, key findings, and significance.

   • The conclusion should provide a more structured summary of the key contributions of the study, emphasizing how the research advances the field and potential practical applications.

4. Text Clarity and Readability:

   • Some sections contain dense and complex technical descriptions that could benefit from clearer explanations and better segmentation.

   • The use of subheadings and bullet points in the methodology and discussion sections could improve readability.

   • Certain terms and acronyms should be better defined upon first use to ensure accessibility to a broader audience.

 

Conclusion: The manuscript provides a strong foundation for further discussion in the field of maritime data management. However, to enhance its impact, the authors should address the clarity of the methodology, expand the discussion section, and improve the structure of the abstract and conclusion. With these improvements, the paper will provide a clearer and more compelling contribution to the maritime science and engineering community.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1, thank you for your constructive and positive feedback. We have taken all your suggestions into account during the revision of our paper. You can find our point-by-point listing below:

Comment 1:

Methodology Clarity: The methodology section is not clearly highlighted. It is unclear whether the manuscript is primarily a review article or an original research study. If it is a review, this should be explicitly stated. A more structured methodology description would help readers understand how the study was conducted, particularly how the research gap was identified and how the proposed system was evaluated.

Response 1: The authors agree with Reviewer 1. A subchapter entitled “Structure and Methodology” has now been added in section 1, in which the Methodology and Structure of the paper is described section by section. In this way, it is now clearer that the paper is an original research study, how the research gap was derived and how the proposed architecture was practically evaluated. The change can be found in the manuscript from line 82-99.

 

Comment 2:

Lack of Discussion Section: The discussion section is rather limited and could be expanded to provide a critical analysis of the findings. The implications of the proposed data management system should be further explored in relation to existing maritime data management frameworks. Potential challenges and limitations should be discussed in more depth, along with suggestions for future research directions.

Response 2: The authors agree with Reviewer 1. A separate section 6 has now been created for the discussion of the research results, in which the findings are critically examined. For this purpose, the authors analyze the presented architecture in detail for the fulfillment of each of the requirements derived from section 2.3 (Line 982 - 1054). The findings are then put in relation to existing maritime data management frameworks and the scientific contribution of the work is outlined in contrast to the related work (lines 1055-1085). Finally, a subchapter entitled “7.1 Limitations and Future Work” was written in section 7, which explicitly addresses the limitations of the proposed architecture. In addition, three possible extensions of the concept for future research work are presented (line 1106-1162).

 

Comment 3:

Abstract and Conclusion Structure: The abstract lacks a clear structure outlining the study's objective, methodology, results, and contribution. A well-defined abstract should include a concise summary of the research problem, approach, key findings, and significance. The conclusion should provide a more structured summary of the key contributions of the study, emphasizing how the research advances the field and potential practical applications.

Response 3: The authors agree with Reviewer 1. The abstract of the paper has been completely revised. Particular attention was paid to making the objective and the methodology clearer. Additionally, the research question is emphasized, the results outlined and the significance for the maritime domain presented (line 8-23). The conclusion has now been restructured so that the key contributions of the paper are highlighted in more detail at the beginning of the summary (1087-1105). The limitations and future work have been placed in an extra section 7.1 (line 1106-1162). Finally, the section takes a final critical view and emphasizes its relevance for the provision of data-driven services in the maritime domain (line 1148-1162).

 

Comment 4:

Text Clarity and Readability: Some sections contain dense and complex technical descriptions that could benefit from clearer explanations and better segmentation. The use of subheadings and bullet points in the methodology and discussion sections could improve readability. Certain terms and acronyms should be better defined upon first use to ensure accessibility to a broader audience.

Response 4: The authors agree with Reviewer 1. The authors have structured the sections with appropriate subsections and paragraphs to improve the overall comprehensibility of the article. A special focus was placed on the methodology and discussion section. For better structuring, enumerations were added (line 129-215; 339-363; 991-1054; 1067-1085) and individual paragraphs were highlighted by headings (line 370-457; 502-518; 556-605; 703-733; 740-783; 1128-1147). In addition, acronyms were introduced at an early stage in order to make the paper accessible to a wider audience. In addition, an abbreviations section was created in which the reader can look up any acronyms occurring in the paper at any time (line 1180).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is very good, but the exposition of the methodology is very long, it is better that the authors provide a figure explaining the overall architecture of the informatic system.

In addition sections from 6 to the end must be renumbered as section 5 is inexistent

Detailed comments.

This paper proposes a fully decentralized architecture to facilitate secure data exchange between maritime actors, considering some problematic issues such as volatile connectivity, low bandwidth.

The authors have proposed a data space architecture and demonstrated its functionality using a use case from maritime traffic management.

The introduction and the literature review are appropriate to explain the scientific background. The topic studied is only slightly innovative but has very high practical impacts as the lack of connectivity may be problematic in case of maritime accidents.

The description of the system architecture, that is carried out in sections 3. Related Work, 4. Concept, is very detailed but it is long and dispersive. As reported before, it is good to have a summary and in any case a figure that schematizes on the whole the system architecture. 

Section 6 (application) is appropriate and detailed, because it provides in detail the functioning of the system in the given application of a vessel tracking service. 

Section 7, conclusions, is supported by the application results and provides detail about the research gap covered by the system proposed in this paper, that is: allow maritime actors to securely exchange their data without compromising their sovereignty; maximize data availability to sea-side actors to support the provision of data driven services.

On the whole the research is very good and my recommendation is minor revisions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2, thank you for your constructive and positive feedback. We have taken all your suggestions into account during the revision of our paper. You can find our point-by-point listing below:

Comment 1: The paper is very good, but the exposition of the methodology is very long, it is better that the authors provide a figure explaining the overall architecture of the informatic system.

Response 1: The authors agree with Reviewer 2. Figure 2 provides an overview of all subcomponents of the overall system in the form of a component diagram. It has been clarified that the diagram shows the overall architecture proposed in this paper (lines 473-479). The section 4 “concept” is structured in such a way that the overarching architecture is first described on the basis of Figure 2 (line 473-531). Subsequently, the individual components are presented in more detail in the following subsections, such as in section 4.1, where the functionality of the Federated Services “MIR” and “MSR” used in the overall architecture is discussed in more detail, which can also be found in the general overview in Figure 2 (line 532-605).

 

Comment 2: In addition sections from 6 to the end must be renumbered as section 5 is inexistent

Response 2: The authors agree with Reviewer 2. The sections have been renumbered so that all chapter and figure numbers are now correct.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work has been improved and can be published.