Telecommuting and Travel Behaviour: A Survey of White-Collar Employees in Adelaide, Australia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Paper is very interesting, with signlificant findings in terms of telecommuting.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

 

Interesting article. Gives a perspective from a fully other time zone.

I would frame the diminishing of congestion, and the decrease of car trips (and car kilometers travelled) as an important helper for  challenging climate goals. This said there is from your research a move, when trips are made, from PT to car use. So, there is a complex result. I miss this complexity in your discussion.

In my view from Europe, you have too high expectatioins from keeping the same levels on telecommuting after COVID 19. Your only reference here is Salon (2021) so during COVID. What we see happening in Europe is a slowing down of telecommuting. Still higher then before COVID, but certainly not at the same level. Here the role of employers and managers attitudes especially in smaller companies is interesting. They often prefer to be able to see (and control) their employees. Is this not the case in Adelaide? Pleae look at your data again.

All in all I like your article. But I do not fully understand RQ 1. Is this article only about telecommuting during COVIS. Somewe here else in the artickle you state to look at Post COVID ?

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is interesting and provides interesting data about commuter behaviour changes caused by the Covid pandemic.  However the text has to be checked once more, since there are many mistakes, ranging from simple mistyping (verses 36, 159, 220, 361 etc., also Table 2, Fig. 16 with correspondene to verses 641-3 etc.) to creating problems with understanding the sentence.

In verse 44 I understand that under vehicle trips car trips are hidden, especially that later the phrase car trips is also used.  Public transport is also vehicular.

In verses 125-7 it is hard to figure out what is the cause and what is the effect – the sentence should be rephrased to eliminate such dilemma.

Verse 203 – it is contrary to conventional wisdom, therefore it should be explained why those who had strong inclinations to work from home actually were more frequent in commuting.  The phrase should stick it out as something unexpected.

Verse 391 – why number of cars is considered as a continuous factor, not a discrete one?

Verse 397 – was distance to work excluded from the analysis done in this paper or decided to be a parameter not corresponding to other parameters?

Figure 8 – it would also be interesting to see what percentage of certain income respondents telecommuted how often.  In other words, what percentage of >A$100k telecommuted less than once a month, 1 – 2 days in a month etc.

Telecommuting provides not only an alternative to personal vehicle use, but also, sometimes with even bigger force, an alternative to public transport.

Savings from resigning to heat / cool a room for a part of a day but later reach the expected temperature are small.  A permanent reduction of a need for some part of office space reduces energy use significantly.

While local public transport still has to reach it’s preCovid modal share, long distance public transport in some areas already retook it’s position.  There are airports that have year 2023 as the best year ever, in number of passengers.  Better than in preCovid years.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The article has many mistakes, sometimes it is hard to distinguish whether it is only a language mistake, or are there other conclusions.  Therefore comments on quality of the text and of the language were combined.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article has been improved.  Minor text corrections (like a double space between words) would be welcome.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Final proofread should be made, but the language quality is good.

Author Response

Comments 1: The article has been improved.  Minor text corrections (like a double space between words) would be welcome. 

Response 1: We have addressed the issue of double spacing using find query in word. Thank you for recognizing the improvement. We appreciate your positive feedback.

 

Comments 2: Comments on the Quality of English Language Final proofread should be made, but the language quality is good.

Response 2: The study has undergone another round of proofreading to ensure that the text is clear and free from any mistakes.