Review Reports - Operational Performance Analysis of the Public Transport System over Time

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper proposes a methodology for evaluating the operational performance of a public transport system. Such methodology is based on the Data Envelopment Analysis and the Malmquist Index. Three inputs (vehicle age, operating time and the mileage travelled) and two outputs (number of passengers and fare revenue) are included in the analysis. More than 40M of raw records acquired through an Automatic Fare Collection System from 2016 to 2022 in the Public Transport System of the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza (Brazil) are considered as case study. The paper is interesting, it focuses on a topical issue, and the study and the analysis were presented in an interesting and clear manner. However, I think that the paper could be still improved before the publication, addressing the following concern on technical issues.

Comment 1

Adopting Automatic Fare Collection System data can underestimate passenger demand. Indeed, Automatic Fare Collection System data are ticket-dependent methods, thus they typically underestimate ridership owing to possible fare evaders as shown in recent research (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/6458371; https://doi.org/10.17226/26514 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12469-019-00225-w ). Thus, this limitation should be recognized.

Comment 2

How were the data on running time and mileage collected? I suppose that GPS records from Automatic Vehicle Location systems had been considered. However, GPS data may present several inconsistencies such as missing data and bus overtaking. These inconsistencies may affect the prediction of the arrival time and, thus, travel time for each vehicle. Therefore, take care of this aspect, argue about it, and look at several papers, which analyzed inconsistencies with AVL data (see e.g., https://doi.org/10.1002/qre.2073).

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for considering our manuscript, entitled “Operational Performance Analysis of the Public Transport System Over Time”, and especially for the soundness and value of your comments and suggestions.

We have made all the effort to carefully address all the raised points, and we believe the recommended changes have significantly contributed to make our manuscript more solid, and especially clearer regarding its role within the existing literature.

This letter summarises the changes made and clearly highlights how each of the suggestions made by the Reviewer have been addressed. To facilitate
the association between the recommendations and the changes made, the changes are described in the context of the specific Reviewer’ comments, providing the related manuscript page and line numbers. In addition, the revised parts of the text are marked up using the Review option in the Overleaf platform.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper studies the Operational Performance Analysis of the Public Transport System Over Time. Some weaknesses should be addressed in this paper. The results indicate that the system’s performance declined in specific years. In addition, the analysis enables a better understanding of route performance, considering the operating company or the area of operation, which helps to diagnose and comprehend the operation more effectively. By analyzing the operational performance over time, the proposed approach provides an additional contribution by offering a comprehensive overview to the stakeholders, fostering decision-making processes based on evidence. Therefore, I suggest the authors resubmit it after a major revision. My suggestions are as follows:

Main comments:

The authors must better elaborate on the whole text and improve the overall scientific evidence of the provided work.

Rather than that, to enhance the overall work, the following changes are suggested to be made:

1. Introduction

* The authors state, “Mass transportation systems are crucial in large cities and metropolitan areas globally, not only because they enable the movement of large numbers of people but also because they play a significant role in addressing environmental concerns and promoting the well-being of citizens. Public transport services are particularly essential for the lower-income strata of the population.” The authors should provide relevant references suggested at the end, verifying such examples. The same comment goes for the statement, “Public transport is commonly managed and regulated by government institutions to provide high-quality transportation options that meet the desires and needs of the population.”. In general, the authors should revise the first two paragraphs of the Introduction part and add relevant references in all the facts and statements they are referring to.

* The introduction should be enhanced with additional details regarding the investigated problem. Among the additional information, I suggest that the authors include relevant statistics to verify the problem’s statement, including statistics around the globe to enhance the scientific evidence of their statements.

* The authors state, “Automated Fare Collection Systems (AFC).” They should provide relevant references describing what AFC represents.

* The authors state, “Transit Management Systems (ATMS)” They should provide relevant references for verifying the such fact.

2. Materials and Methods

* The authors state, “The initial approach employed in the analysis proposed was the conventional DEA” The authors should provide some indicative examples of such circumstances.

* The authors should explain the study description “The number of passengers variable is the most frequently used output in the analyzed publications (Azambuja et al. [29], Sampaio et al. [30], Araújo et al. [31], Güner and Co¸skun 211 [27], Sun et al. [32], Fitzová et al. [33], Karim and Fouad [16], and Fitzová and Matulová [34]). It is a crucial variable as it represents the primary focus of public transport service 213 provisions, meeting the travel needs of passengers and providing quality service. The other output variable used is fare revenue, which is utilized in Zhu et al. [35], Zhang et al. [36], and Fitzová and Matulová [34].” providing the same number of details as they have done with the rest of the investigated studies in this Section.

* Even though the authors have described many relevant existing studies in this Section, how they have split this information into the provided paragraphs needs to be clarified. The authors are advised to organize the provided data into separate paragraphs better.

3. Data Set - Case Study

* In this section’s beginning, the authors state, “The case studied comprises 15 of the 19 municipalities in the Metropolitan Region”. Why did they choose to describe only those concepts? They should mention this in this part as well. Please clarify your case study.

* It needs to be clarified which analysis is carried out from the perspective of managers and operators.

5. Computational results

* In line 275, you mentioned: “The efficient routes are a reference (benchmarking) for the inefficient ones.”

Please clarify more.

* Overall, the authors should better organize this Section since the provided results need to be clarified, not how the proposed methodology is applied to the chosen experiment scenario.

6. Discussion

* In Lines 328-329, “Despite the stability of the operating performance during the period analyzed, it is important to highlight that the public transport network underwent a reduction, as previously mentioned.”

Explain and clarify more.

* At the end of this Section, the authors are advised to discuss their model’s limitations and challenges and how they will address them.

7. Conclusion and future work

* The authors should also clarify their study's target users and stakeholders in this section.

General comments:

1. As the first step, I strongly suggest that the paper be proofread and reread meticulously again, particularly regarding the spelling and grammatical mistakes.

2. In some cases, such as line 227 of page 6, the reference to figures is forgotten.

3. Flowchart is beneficial; it’s also important to outline the methodology behind this new approach. Please consider a flowchart of your suggested approach at the beginning of your paper.

4. Add a literature review section after the introduction.

5. Please outline the structure of your paper at the end of the introduction with more details, subsections, and research gaps.

6. I suggest you update section 2 so that the illustration used in the methodology section should be more readable.

7. Please clarify the definitions for equation 2. What are the main strategies behind this target? Explain more.

8. It is necessary to include additional information for the data description.

9. Following the mathematical model is difficult due to a few notational mistakes.

10. What is your mean by 148-150? "This method allows the comparison of routes within a public passenger transport system. This analysis is important to identify disparities in route performance and the most efficient ones."

Please explain and clarify more and provide more information.

12. To improve your related works, you should consider the following the DEA and associated high-quality papers in your separate literature review part:

- Walking on sunshine: Pairing electric vehicles with solar energy for sustainable informal public transport in Uganda. Energy Research & Social Science. 2022 Mar 1; 85:102403.

- The effects of using different output measures in efficiency analysis of public transport operations. Research in Transportation Business & Management. 2018 Sep 1; 28:12-22.

- Measuring and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of bus public transport systems. Research in Transportation Economics. 2014 Dec 1; 48:84-91.

- Assessing rice production efficiency for food security policy planning in Malaysia: A non-parametric bootstrap data envelopment analysis approach. Food Policy. 2022 Feb 1;107:102208.

-. A novel machine learning approach combined with optimization models for eco-efficiency evaluation. Applied Sciences. 2020 Jul 28;10(15):5210.

- A nonparametric efficiency analysis of German public transport companies. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review. 2010 May 1;46(3):436-45.

- Study on the Rural Revitalization and Urban-Rural Integration Efficiency in Anhui Province Based on Game Cross-Efficiency DEA Model. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience. 2022 Apr 13;2022.

- Evaluation of Technical Efficiency in Exotic Carp Polyculture in Northern India: Conventional DEA vs. Bootstrapping Methods. Fishes. 2022 Jul 14;7(4):168.

- Employing DEA for Assessment of Cruise Market: A Case Study in Malaga—Spanish Port. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. 2022 Nov 22;10(12):1805.

- Evaluation of green logistics efficiency in Jiangxi Province based on Three-Stage DEA from the perspective of high-quality development. Sustainability. 2022 Jan 11;14(2):797.

- Third-party logistics efficiency: an innovative two-stage DEA analysis of the French market. International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications. 2021 Nov 2;24(6):581-604.

- Gkiotsalitis K, Cats O, Liu T. A review of public transport transfer synchronisation at the real-time control phase. Transport reviews. 2023 Jan 2;43(1):88-107.

- Empirical research on the application of online teaching in Chinese colleges and universities under the situation of novel coronavirus pneumonia prevention and control. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET). 2020 Jun 12;15(11):119-36.

- Yang Y, Zhang H, Chen M, Jiang Y, Chai H. An inheritance mode of rural cultural heritage based on virtual museum in China. International Journal of Computer Games Technology. 2021 Aug 6; 2021:1-4.

In conclusion, this version is unacceptable and needs to apply all the suggested comments and references point by point.

Extensive editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript evaluates the performance of public transport using AFC data. The analysis is based on DEA and Malmquist Index. Case study is conducted, and managerial insights are provided.

Overall, the manuscript in its current form is of good quality but not ready for publication. I recommend major revision. Here are my comments:

1. Please highlight the novelty of this paper. Lines 99-102 is not persuasive and convincing, and more discussion is required.

2. Please move all or part of literature on inputs and outputs, that is, lines 191-218 to Section 1.

3. More discussion on selection of inputs and outputs are required. For instance, customer waiting cost, server operating cost, and service rate switching cost are common cost indictors in service industry:

Zhang, Hao, Qi-Ming He, and Xiaobo Zhao. "Balancing herding and congestion in service systems: a queueing perspective." INFOR: Information Systems and Operational Research 58.3 (2020): 511-536.

Moreover, congestion and facility utilization are commonly used performance indicators.

4. Please change the radar charts in Figure 2 and Figure 3 to commonly used bar charts or line charts.

The language of the manuscript is easy to follow. I recommend minor English language editing.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors answered all my concerns and this version is available for publication.

Moderate editing of English language

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors made significant revisions in accordance with my previous review report and the response letter is persuasive. The manuscript in its current form reaches the standard of Infrastructures and I recommend accept.

The language of the manuscript is easy to follow. I recommend minor English language editing.