A Framework for Adopting a Sustainable Smart Sea Port Index

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper provides a review of indexes of sustainable smart ports. However, the content should be better organized and the information should be more directive. What are the limits and what are the future work in this field should be highlighed. 

- The abstract has to be improved to be more directive and informative. The current version spends too much world on the background rather than the work that has been done.
- Brackets around SP may not be necessary.
- The title indicates the work is for smart ports rather than smart seaports. The content should be more precise. If the index works for both sea and inland ports, it is quite nice. If the index does not work for inland ports, some explanation is needed. 
- Some subsections may be needed to help readers follow the content. Furthermore, some figures and tables can also help a lot.
- Section 4 on documents by category may not be that necessary. 
- Figure 8 is too small to read.
- Conclusions should be given on the selection of indexes of smart ports.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments from Reviewer

 

This paper discusses a collection of systematic literature review about SPI and SP activities in different domains: operations, environment, energy, safety, and security and from the literature findings, this paper proposed a research framework for adapting sustainable SP. Although it is an interesting topic, this paper lacks novelty work. The results and framework proposed are based on literature findings. They are also not written comprehensively but rather broad. Furthermore, there is no verification/validation on how the proposed framework is effective for adapting sustainable smart port. In addition to this, there are several important issues that must be addressed to significantly improve the paper in its present form as given in the comments below. In this regard, I do not recommend this paper to be published and major revision is required for the paper in its present form.

 

1. Multiple references are not helpful. Please remove them.

 

2. Some sentences from the literature review were written without mentioning the name of author, e.g., [21-23] defined the smart port by way of… on Lines 138. This looks odd. The name of author(s) should be mentioned if the specific work/findings are to be pointed out. Check for lines 140, 160, and so on.

 

3. Strangely, SPI was abbreviated in the abstract but not abbreviated in Section 2.2 Smart Port Index. No SPI to be found in Section 2.2. Please amend or remove SPI if it is redundant.

 

4. The paper title seems to be misleading. Is this paper supposed to be a literature review or an original article?

 

5. Figure 8 is not clear. Please enlarge.

 

6. There are only four features for the fifth generation of ports. Please check on lines 169 – 178.

 

7. Include table caption for Table 3.

 

8. All the figure and table captions are not specific. Please revise to reflect on what those figures and tables are about with relevant to the context.

 

9. How do sections 4.1 to 4.5 relate to section 5 Discussion? I don’t see any reference to the Figures 3 to 7 in the discussion section. Discussion should relate to the results otherwise there is no meaning of the results.

 

10. There are too many references in the discussion section, which may confuse readers whether the discussion content is based on the results or on the existing literature.

 

11. There is no clear justification on how the research framework is formed based on the results and discussion.

 

12. It is unusual to add citation in abstract. I would suggest removing it from the abstract.

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewers

Cover Letter

Journal of sustainability

 

Dear Editor,

Subject: Submission of revised paper “Adopting a Sustainable Smart Port Index: Systematic Literature Review”. Manuscript ID: sustainability-1607966

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript “A Framework for Adopting a Sustainable Smart Port Index: Systematic Literature Review” for publication in the Journal of sustainability. We appreciate you and the reviewers for your precious time in reviewing our paper and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper. It was your valuable and insightful comments that led to possible improvements in the current version. The authors have carefully considered the comments and suggestions made by the reviewers and tried our best to address every one of them.

We hope the manuscript after careful revisions meet your high standards. The authors welcome further constructive comments if any. Below we provide the point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments and concerns. All modifications in the manuscript have been highlighted in red. All page numbers refer to the revised manuscript file with tracked changes.

 

 

 

 

 Sincerely,

Name Alaa Othman, Ph.D. alaa.abomousa@gmail.com

 

The University of Maribor, Faculty of logistics
                 

 

Reviewer 2

[General Comment]: This paper discusses a collection of systematic literature reviews about SPI and SP activities in different domains: operations, environment, energy, safety, and security and from the literature findings, this paper proposed a research framework for adapting sustainable SP. Although it is an interesting topic, this paper lacks novelty work. The results and framework proposed are based on literature findings. They are also not written comprehensively but rather broad. Furthermore, there is no verification/validation on how the proposed framework is effective for adapting sustainable smart ports. In addition to this, there are several important issues that must be addressed to significantly improve the paper in its present form as given in the comments below. In this regard, I do not recommend this paper to be published and major revision is required for the paper in its present form.

Response: Thank you for the comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled. We appreciate the suggested modifications and have revised the manuscript accordingly. We hope the manuscript has been improved accordingly.

The detailed point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments are presented as follows:

1. Comment 1: [This paper lacks novelty work]

Author response: We agree with the reviewer as it points to an important rationale of this study. Accordingly, throughout the manuscript, we have revised the paper originality, while we appreciate the reviewer’s feedback, we think this study makes a valuable contribution to the field because Smart port is a broad concept that contains several aspects of port activities Although many previous studies discuss smart ports requirements there is limited availability of literature and research from academic researchers that tackle these requirements in integrated vision and show its impact on sustainability aspects to enhance the economic, social, and environmental factors of ports. Therefore, we aim to develop an integrated smart port index SPI capturing different elements of SP and linking them to port sustainability performance through a systematic review of the limited work on smart ports pillars with a focus on the role of sustainability.

As suggested by the reviewer, we have accordingly modified the originality of the paper to emphasize this point, we have revised the paper originality and it has been clarified in the following sections:

• Section: Abstract, Page: 1
• Section: 1, Page: 3
• Section: 2, Page:11
• Section: 6, Page: 22

2. Comment 2: [There is no verification/validation on how the proposed framework is effective for adapting sustainability]

Author Response: The research provides an authentic contribution to knowledge through developing a comprehensive sustainable smart port index and testing their impact on the port performance. Sustainable transport development is becoming gradually more important in the improvement of smart seaports performance; the research has been developed through conducting a systematic literature review which aims to identify, evaluate, and summarize the findings of all relevant scientific published literature papers by theoretically connecting the concepts of Smart Port Index, Maritime transport, key performance indicators and Sustainability that are available on different databases, the review identifies initially a total of 450 papers resulted in 48 papers. The paper focuses on the analysis of smart ports relating to the following five fundamental pillars from the industry practice and academic research results: Operation, Environment, Energy, Safety and security, and human factor. On the one hand, digitalization is counted to be an essential pillar of all of the above-mentioned pillars because the five previous approaches are studied based on the digitalization and application of new technologies. We were the first to conduct such a combination of studies and the conceptualization for the future theoretical investigation and empirical studies can be extended to test the applicability of the theoretical framework presented in this paper

• Section: abstract, Page 1.
• Section: 5, Page: 21

Reviewer 2 Comments	Author Response	Location of Response in Revised Manuscript
3.      Multiple references are not helpful. Please remove them.	We agree with this reviewer that the information would be useful by removing the multiple citations	Section: 1, 2 and 5 Page: Through the whole sections
4.      Some sentences from the literature review [Cho, 2006 #59] were written without mentioning the name of author, e.g., [21-23] defined the smart port by way of… on Lines 138. This looks odd. The name of author(s) should be mentioned if the specific work/findings are to be pointed out. Check for lines 140, 160, and so on.	We have corrected those citations and all other authors' names that point out specific work or findings over the manuscript	Section: Section: 1, 2 and 5   Page: Through the whole sections
5.      Strangely, SPI was abbreviated in the abstract but not abbreviated in Section 2.2 Smart Port Index. No SPI to be found in Section 2.2. Please amend or remove SPI if it is redundant.	We agree with the reviewer and have amended and modified every abbreviation in the manuscript  Change: Remove SPI from all sections and keep the abbreviation only in the abstract section due to the number of words limitation	Section: 2.2
6.      The paper title seems to be misleading. Is this paper supposed to be a literature review or an original article?	We agree with the reviewer that this seems to be misleading and have amended the title. Change: The title has been updated to the following:  A Framework for Adopting a Sustainable Smart Sea Port index The paper already proposed a framework however the framework is based on systematic LR, the author has updated the title by removing the word systematic review to avoid misleading, however, the methodology used in the paper to formulate the framework using the systematic review already mentioned in the abstract and in the manuscript	Section: Title Page: 1
7.      Figure 8 is not clear. Please enlarge.	We agree with the reviewer’s comments that these figures could be made clearer. Change: Enlarge the figure	Section: 5 Page: 22
8.      There are only four features for the fifth generation of ports. Please check on lines 169 – 178.	The author supported the fifth generation of ports concept with a paragraph for clarification and more references as indicated Kindly check the following references: o    Kaliszewski, A. (2018). "Fifth and sixth generation ports (5GP, 6GP)–evolution of economic and social roles of ports." https://www. researchgate. net/publication/324497972_FIFT H_AND_SIXTH_GENERATION_PORTS_5GP_6GP_-_EVOLUTION_OF_ECONOMIC_AND_SOCIAL_ROLES _OF_PORTS Retrieved 5: 2019. o    Lee, P. T.-W. and J. S. L. Lam (2016). Developing the fifth generation ports model. Dynamic shipping and port development in the globalized economy, Springer: 186-210. o    Flynn, M. and P. Lee (2010). Customer-centric and community ports as the next step on the port ladder: The fifth-generation ports. The 8th Asia Pacific Transportation Development Conference, Tainan, Taiwan, May. o    Hlali, A. and S. Hammami (2017). "Seaport Concept and Services Characteristics: Theoretical Test." The Open Transportation Journal 11(1).	Section: 2 Page: 5
9.      Include table caption for Table 3.	We have added the caption	Section: 4 Page: 17
10.  All the figure and table captions are not specific. Please revise to reflect on what those figures and tables are about with relevant to the context.	Thank the reviewer for pointing out this typo Change: We have ensured that the figures and tables are revised in order and we have amended them and their related paragraphs in the manuscript.	Section: 3 Page: 12 and 13
11.  How do sections 4.1 to 4.5 relate to section 5 Discussion? I don’t see any reference to the Figures 3 to 7 in the discussion section. Discussion should relate to the results otherwise there is no meaning of the results.	We agree with this reviewer that the information in the discussion section should be related to the results and findings Change: The Results has been updated to show the connection between section 4 and section 5 The references have been amended	Section: 5 Page: 19 References Section: 4 Pages: 15, 16 & 17
12.  There are too many references in the discussion section, which may confuse readers whether the discussion content is based on the results or on the existing literature.	Although we agree that this is an important consideration, the paper is based on a systematic review so in the findings, some citations should be used however some citation has been minimized and more discussion and elaboration has been updated	Section: 5 Page: 20
13.  There is no clear justification on how the research framework is formed based on the results and discussion.	We agree with the reviewer’s assessment. Accordingly, in order to clarify this, we highlighted this point in the abstract, introduction discussion, and findings throughout the manuscript	Section: abstract Page: 1 Section: 5 Page: 21 Section:  6 Page: 23
14.  It is unusual to add citation in abstract. I would suggest removing it from the abstract.	As suggested by the reviewer, the abstract has been modified Change: The citation has been removed	Section: abstract Page: 1

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have made sufficient changes and updates to the paper. The unsatisfactory parts are still the figures. The words are either too small to read or not fully presented. Please carefully check the figures.

Author Response

Response to Reviewers

Cover Letter

Journal of sustainability

 

Dear Editor,

Subject: Submission of revised paper “A Framework for Adopting a Sustainable Smart Seaport Index”. Manuscript ID: sustainability-1607966

Thank you for your careful reading of the revised manuscript and the reviewers’ constructive remarks on our paper ‘A Framework for Adopting a Sustainable Smart Seaport Index.’ We appreciate you and the reviewers for your precious time in reviewing our paper and are grateful for the suggestions offered by the reviewers that have been immensely helpful and valuable improvements to our paper.

The authors have carefully included the reviewers’ comments and suggestions immediately after this letter and responded to them individually, indicating exactly how we addressed each concern or comment and describing the changes we have made.

We hope the manuscript after careful revisions meet your high standards. The authors welcome further constructive comments if any. Below we provide the point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments and concerns. All modifications in the manuscript have been highlighted in red. All page numbers refer to the revised manuscript file with tracked changes.

 

 Sincerely,

Name Alaa Othman, Ph.D. alaa.abomousa@gmail.com

 

The University of Maribor, Faculty of logistics
                 

 

Response to Reviewer 1 Round 2

 

[General Comment]: The authors have made sufficient changes and updates to the paper. The unsatisfactory parts are still the figures. The words are either too small to read or not fully presented. Please carefully check the figures

Response:

Thank you for the comment and suggestions on our manuscript entitled. We appreciate the suggested modifications and have revised the manuscript. We hope the manuscript has been improved accordingly.

We agree with the reviewer’s comments that these figures could be made clearer. We have considered this point and enlarged the figures and words

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewers

Cover Letter

Journal of sustainability

 

Dear Editor,

Subject: Submission of revised paper “A Framework for Adopting a Sustainable Smart Seaport Index”. Manuscript ID: sustainability-1607966

Thank you for your careful reading of the revised manuscript and the reviewers’ constructive remarks on our paper ‘A Framework for Adopting a Sustainable Smart Seaport Index.’ We appreciate you and the reviewers for your precious time in reviewing our paper and are grateful for the suggestions offered by the reviewers that have been immensely helpful and valuable improvements to our paper.

The authors have carefully included the reviewers’ comments and suggestions immediately after this letter and responded to them individually, indicating exactly how we addressed each concern or comment and describing the changes we have made.

We hope the manuscript after careful revisions meet your high standards. The authors welcome further constructive comments if any. Below we provide the point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments and concerns. All modifications in the manuscript have been highlighted in red. All page numbers refer to the revised manuscript file with tracked changes.

 

 Sincerely,

Name Alaa Othman, Ph.D. alaa.abomousa@gmail.com

 

The University of Maribor, Faculty of logistics
                 

 

 

Reviewer 2 Response Round 2

[General Comment]:

Most of the comments raised by me have been addressed and the revised paper has been significantly improved.

Response: The author would like to thank the Reviewer for their positive comment and careful review, which helped improve the manuscript, enrich the paper and developed it in a better format, we have gone through the whole comments addressed by the reviewer carefully and tried our best to address them one by one, we hope the newly updated manuscript has been improved accordingly

The detailed point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments are presented as follows:

Reviewer 2 Comments	Author Response	Location of Response in Revised Manuscript
1.      There are errors for the figure captions from Figure 3 onwards (e.g., the graph/bar chart is incomplete with no axis titles and labels).	We thank the reviewer for pointing this out, which has now been corrected Change: The figure and its caption have been edited	Section: 3 Pages: 11 & 12
2.      The word “Source (Authors)” appeared below the figure captions. Please remove them.	We have corrected those citations over the manuscript In responses, we deleted this word	Section: 3 Page: 11 Section: 4 Pages: 14,15 &16
3.      Enlarge Figure 10 (the words are relatively small).	We agree with the reviewer’s comments that these figures could be made clearer. Change: Enlarge the figure and the words	Section: 5 Page: 21
4.      Also, the table captions are not specific. They have not been corrected as advised in my previous comments. E.g., “Table 1: Research Steps” should be revised to “Table 1: Research of refining literature search”.	We agreed with the reviewer and to avoid any confusion, we have deleted figure 4 and updated table 1 Change: Table 1 has been amended in the revised manuscript and is now captioned: Research of refining literature search We have updated also the revised manuscript and re-ordered the figures and tables and we have amended them and their related paragraphs in the manuscript.	Section: 3 Pages:11, 12 and 13
5.      Finally, please go through the paper again and improve the grammatical errors in this paper. There are still some typos and grammar mistakes found	As suggested by the reviewer, we have gone through the revised article and corrected typo mistakes and grammatical errors.	Page: Through the whole sections

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx