Transport Service Provider Perception of Barriers and Urban Freight Policies in Brazil
, Carla de Oliveira Leite Nascimento 1, Paulo Renato de Sousa 2, Paulo Tarso Vilela de Resende 2 and Francisco Gildemir Ferreira da Silva 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is interesting and the results appear consistent. I wonder about two aspects not covered:
To what extend influence city specific circumstances urban freight in these areas? Are there cultural differences that should be taken into account talking about (alignment to) policies? The survey covers 3.9% of Brazilian transport service providers. To what extent are the results transferable to the companies that did not participate in the survey? (e.g. insights from literature, informal stakeholder talks, information on the type of company)Some minor spelling issues I noticed:
Line 44ff: please check the number formats (percentages „91.1%“ instead of „91,1%“) Line 353: please check number formats (2nd instead of 2rs, 4th instead of 4rd, etc.)Some other remarks:
Line 47-48: Reference is missing Line 359: “Congestion charge is a non-political freight policy.” What do you mean by that? Is this a result of the survey or from a reference not mentioned? Table 4: Please name the components
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper "Transport service provider perception about barriers and urban freight policies in developing countries" falls within the scope of the journal Sustainability. The study has some interesting details and processing interesting fields. Urban logistics and transport planning are very important for all participants, so this research has my support. But, the paper must be significantly improved to satisfy criteria for publication in one very quality journal such is Sustainability.
Please carefully read my suggestions and make revision:
The title of the paper should be changed. I have not perceived that your research has a relation with some developing countries. Research has conducted only in Brazil. Also, a discussion about perception in other developing countries is missing. Harmonize the title with text in the paper. Aims of the study must be clearly defined in abstract and introduction. Introduction section must be modified. The tables should be avoided in introduction table. Remove Table 1 from this section. In introduction should be presented aims, the motivation of the research, significance, and contributions. Also, ensure the structure of the paper as the last paragraph in this section. Line 52: one reference is enough. The literature review section is mandatory. After introduction create this section. All text after Line 76 should be included. Also, in this section is mandatory comparison with other developing countries, other important tasks in this field such as all aspects of sustainability (economic, social and environment). The following references should be included: - Stojić, G., Sremac, S., & Vasiljković, I. (2018). A fuzzy model for determining the justifiability of investing in a road freight vehicle fleet. Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications, 1(1), 62-75. - Ebrahimi, H., & Tadic, M. (2018). Optimization of dangerous goods transport in urban zone. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 1(2), 131-152. Table 1 should be modified. You can show this information on a smaller table. Please explain why you did not include more companies. The period of data collection is small if we taking into account seriously research. Also, July and August should be time for holiday, so it can be the reason for such small number of companies that answered. Cronbach’ alpha coefficient is acceptable, but please discuss why the larger value 0.76. What is the reason? Figures 6 and 7 should be larger and clearer. Please discuss the situation with existing or no logistics center which can be very useful for planning urban mobility. Please discuss your research with the possibility to create a smart city. Cite the following paper: VUKOVIC, N., RZHAVTSEV, A., & SHMYREV, V. (2019). SMART CITY: THE CASE STUDY OF SAINT-PETERBURG 2019. CO PUBLISHER, (1-2), 15. Conclusion is mandatory. Explain contributions and future research. The number of self-citations should be decreased. I found a large number of self-citations.Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article is very interesting and well written. Generally I do not have any major remarks to the paper. However, I think that it could be good to add section 'Conclusions' to this paper (by replacing from the last section text summarizing research). Please also explain how the sample of 5205 of Brazilian transport service provider companies was selected.
In the Figure 3(a) the scale should be improved (e.g. 5 billions can be in two situations: 5-10 billions and 1-5 billions; the same situation is with other values)
There are a few small grammar mistakes such as:
Line 21: 'polity' - should be 'policy'
please improve the language style of the following sentences:
Line 348: 'Loading/unloading areas is the second ordered preferences is pointed as challenge'
Lines 530-352: 'However, there is a lack of areas and lack of enforcement encourages parking for purposes other than loading/unloading of goods. [10] pointed the importance of this freight measure to improve the number and availability of these area in Brazil.'
please correct the order numbers in the Table 5:
(2nd, 10th, 4th, 5th etc.)
Author Response
Please see attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors made an effort to improve the quality of the paper, but still, some suggestions have not adopted or not performed correctly.
It is necessary to make the following:
- Aims of the study must be clearly defined in abstract and introduction. You have written the same sentence in abstract and introduction " The transport service provider perception of barriers and urban freight polices in Brazil was analyzed in this study" Aims are not clearly defined with this sentence. Improve.
- In introduction should be presented aims, the motivation of the research, significance, and contributions. Also, ensure the structure of the paper as the last paragraph in this section. You have ensured the structure of the paper and some modifications. You have deleted some parts of introduction section, but still the motivation of the research, the significance is missing.
- Also, in this section is mandatory comparison with other developing countries, other important tasks in this field such as all aspects of sustainability (economic, social and environment). The following references
should be included: - Stojić, G., Sremac, S.,& Vasiljković, I. (2018). A fuzzy model for determining the justifiability of investing in a road freight vehicle fleet. Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications, 1(1), 62-75. - Ebrahimi, H., & Tadic, M. (2018). Optimization of
dangerous goods transport in urban zone. Decision Making: Applications in
Management and Engineering, 1(2), 131-152. Comparison is mandatory.
- Cronbach’ alpha coefficient is acceptable, but please discuss why the larger value 0.76. What is the reason? You have not discussed this.
- Please discuss your research with the possibility to create a smart city. Cite the following paper: VUKOVIC, N., RZHAVTSEV, A., & SHMYREV, V. (2019). SMART CITY: THE CASE STUDY OF SAINT-PETERBURG 2019. CO PUBLISHER, (1-2), 15 You can relate this in conclusion with guidelines for future research.
- Please improve the paper according to all suggestions. Performed changes are not enough.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Transport service provider perception about barriers and urban freight policies in Brazil”. The suggestions were valuable and helpful for improving our paper.
In the first revision, we had not considered your suggestion due we understand some of them went beyond the objectives of this article. Now, we incorporated the suggestion as indicated below. All modifications are in red in the manuscript.
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Review comments |
Author comments |
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The authors made an effort to improve the quality of the paper, but still, some suggestions have not adopted or not performed correctly.
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In the first revision, we had not considered your suggestion for the fact that we understood that some of them were beyond the objectives of this article. Now, we incorporated all suggestion as explained in this table.
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- Aims of the study must be clearly defined in abstract and introduction. You have written the same sentence in abstract and introduction " The transport service provider perception of barriers and urban freight polices in Brazil was analyzed in this study" Aims are not clearly defined with this sentence. Improve. |
We improved the aims of the paper in the first sentences of the abstract, to make it clear.
Also, in the introduction, we tried to make more clearly the objectives of the paper (see comment below) |
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- In introduction should be presented aims, the motivation of the research, significance, and contributions. Also, ensure the structure of the paper as the last paragraph in this section. You have ensured the structure of the paper and some modifications. You have deleted some parts of introduction section, but still the motivation of the research, the significance is missing. |
We tried to make clearer the aims in lines 61-64.
The motivation is described in lines 59-60. The contribution of the paper is described in lines 76-87.
The structure of the paper follows as the last paragraph of the introduction 2. Literature review 2.1. Urban Freight Transport and Stakeholders in Brazil 3. Research approach 4. Results and Discussion 4.1 Barriers and Freight Restriction Analysis 4.2 Freight policies analysis 4.3 Discussion 5. Conclusion
We moved some parts of the introduction to literature review section, as suggested by you on round 1 (create a literature review section). |
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- Also, in this section is mandatory comparison with other developing countries, other important tasks in this field such as all aspects of sustainability (economic, social and environment). The following references should be included: - Stojić, G., Sremac, S.,& Vasiljković, I. (2018). A fuzzy model for determining the justifiability of investing in a road freight vehicle fleet. Operational Research in Engineering Sciences: Theory and Applications, 1(1), 62-75. - Ebrahimi, H., & Tadic, M. (2018). Optimization of dangerous goods transport in urban zone. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 1(2), 131-152. Comparison is mandatory. |
As suggested by reviewer 2, we changed the title to “Transport service provider perception about barriers and urban freight policies in Brazil”. Unfortunately, we do not identified papers about similar subject in developing countries, as informed in the round 1. We also do not include references suggested because they are not aligned with the objectives of the manuscript. Unfortunately, we cannot meet this suggestion because we believe that is not in line with the purpose of the article. |
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- Cronbach’ alpha coefficient is acceptable, but please discuss why the larger value 0.76. What is the reason? You have not discussed this. |
Cronbach's alpha is a measure of reliability, which indicates that results actually measure what happens in the real world, that they are not a measure of some error, some random effect. Also, Internal consistency “means that all items in a test measure the same concept” (Gliem and Gliem, 2003).
In this way, “Cronbach's alpha is an index of reliability” (Tavakol and Dennick, 2011) and “there is actually no lower limit to the coefficient” (Gliem and Gliem, 2003).
In this way, it is not right to discuss the value 0.76, mas to discuss if the variables have (or not) values acceptable, as we did in lines 250-251.
References. Tavakol, M.; Dennick, R. Making sense of Cronbach’s alpha. International Journal of Medical Education 2011, v. 2, pp. 53-55. https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.4dfb.8dfd
Gliem, J. A.; Gliem, R. R. Calculating, Interpreting, and Reporting Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient for Likert-Type Scales. In: 2003 Midwest Research to Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education, Columbus 2003.
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- Please discuss your research with the possibility to create a smart city. Cite the following paper: VUKOVIC, N., RZHAVTSEV, A., & SHMYREV, V. (2019). SMART CITY: THE CASE STUDY OF SAINT-PETERBURG 2019. CO PUBLISHER, (1-2), 15 You can relate this in conclusion with guidelines for future research.
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The authors recognize the importance of smart cities. However, this discussion extrapolates the focus of this manuscript. Despite this, we included “Also, stakeholder engagement could be a first step to development of smart cities [83]”. (line 404-405). We had included this suggestion for future research (lines 419-420) on round 1. |
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- Please improve the paper according to all suggestions. Performed changes are not enough.
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We hope to have met your expectation with the modifications made according to your suggestions.
Still, we regret not considering all your suggestions. They are interesting, but not in line with the manuscript. |
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Тhe authors are made an additional effort to improve their paper. Now the paper is clearer by aspects of aims and contributions. This is very important for future readers.
The authors did not include all my suggestions in this revised version. Maybe they don't understand some remarks, for example, discussion about Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and other.
Other reviewers have accepted paper, so I would not make problems.
