Factors Influencing Stopping Locations of Motorcycle Riders on Signalized Urban Intersection Approaches

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study investigates stopping locations of motorcyclists at signalised intersections in Thailand, using aerial footage. This research certainly is of interest to improve traffic safety in densely populated urban settings where motorcycles are the prevalent mode. Thus, I would like the authors to consider following suggestions for improvement:

-        Proof reading of the entire manuscript (typos, grammatical errors) as well as correction of sentence structure.

-        It would be worth pointing out that Thailand is a left-hand-traffic country, as not every reader might know.

-        Include some statistics on number of motorcyclists per zone (min, max, mean) per traffic light cycle.

-        What is the theoretical capacity of an intersection, aver car-queue length?

-        How large would suggested “motorcycle boxes” need to be and how would it influence traffic flow at intersections?

 

-        Did you also investigate car drivers' behavior relative to the motorcyclist's position around cars? 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

In this research, the authors have investigated the factors which influence the stopping locations of motorcycle riders on signalized intersection approaches. They used UAVs for observing the stopping behavior of riders. This research study is interesting, but I have few recommendations which should be incorporated. 

1. The statistical values of the multinomial logistic regression model should be mentioned in the abstract.

2. The authors should clearly mention the research gap which this study fills in the body of the literature at the end of the literature section. Authors should also include the literature about the speeding behavior of drivers as it is also one of the important aspect. I suggest to include following references; a) Structural Equation Modeling of Drivers' Speeding Behavior in Lahore: Importance of Attitudes, Personality Traits, Behavioral Control and Traffic Awareness, b) Integrating the Norm Activation Model (NAM) Theory in Explaining Factors Affecting Drivers’ Speeding Behaviour in Lahore. 

3. Section 3.3, how did they determine the peak hours?

4. Line 221-223, reference should be added validating the results.

5. Conclusions and recommendations section should be enlarged with some extended discussions specially the recommendations part.  

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

This paper introduces a novel approach to analysis of motorcycle driver stopping behavior relying on multinomial logistic regression. The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated on Thailand-based realistic case study. In general, it has satisfiable scientific and technical contributions. 

However, there are still several improvements which are welcome:

1.  If possible, it would be highly beneficial to make the UAV-based dataset somehow available to other researchers (optional, if there are no privacy and other constraints), as this aspect represents one more solid contribution of this work

2. Language and style can be slightly improved. Spellcheck and proofreading are also highly suggested.

3. The tables in experimental and evaluation section seem quite long. If possible, their summarization could really make the paper more compact and easier to follow

4. Despite the fact that Relevant works section is quite exhaustive and complete, more detailed comparison to some of the similar works within the evaluation section could be included as distinct subsection with tabular summary

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The identification of factors influencing the motorcycle rider’s stopping locations at signalized urban intersections. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has been employed to support this objects of study. This research is interest however there are some weakness points that the authors should address them to improve their paper.

1. The order of tables is not correct. Kindly re-check all tables along with their description in the main text.
2. In the introduction, the authors only prefer the motorcyclist crashers in Thailand. This research is not enlarged at some other developing countries in Asia.
3. The scientific meaning of this research should be provided. Additionally, the collected results should be indicated clearly for their contribution in the field of transportation management and policy stakeholders.
4. The multinomial logistic regression analysis method must be provided clearly in the methodology.
5. The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in this research must be indicated clearly not only providing the number of collected motorcyclist riders.
6. The authors must provide the reason why must determine the factors influencing on the riders when finding the stopping intersection.
7. In the references, there are a lot of cited papers which have same idea with this research.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for taking the time to revise the manuscript. The main issue is the "so what?" of this study. In the introduction, you correctly point to the safety issues related to motorcycles at intersections. However, this aspect is missing throughout the rest of the manuscript. By the end, we know the preferred stopping locations of motorcycle riders (including some speculative explanations for this behaviour), but there is little to no mentioning how this affects the safety or traffic flow at signalised intersections. That would be the interesting aspect of this paper!!

Other issues:

What are your criteria to define if a stopping location is dense or not? 

Are all the tables necessary? Is it possible to show them a bit more condensed?

English writing can still be improved. 

After m (for metres) you don't need to place a dot (.)

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the revision. It's accepted.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The authors had addressed some comments from this reviewer. This revised paper had been improved when comparing with the previuos manuscript. However, there are some drawbacks that the authors should address them to improve their research paper.

1. In part 2, literature review, the authors had only stated the previous research results. However, the pros and cons of these research results should be indicated clearly. Additionally, the research gap should be identified and provided when comparing with this research proposal.
2. The authors had employed the Multinomial Logistic Regression Analysis (MLRA) in this research. However, the definition of Cox and Snell R² and Nagelkerke R² has not been described in the proposed method in this research paper.
3. The discussion of proposed method with the existing methods should be conducted from the collected results.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for revising the manuscript. 
The density explanation is still vague. Nevertheless, Figure 3 can help explain your density approach. I would suggest drawing the different zones in this real-world image and highlighting which motorcycle belongs to which zone. Then also explain which zones are classified as dense or not and why.

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The current version of this paper is better than than original one. It could be accepted to publish on Sustainability journal.