Influence of the Built Environment on Older Adults’ Travel Time: Evidence from the Nanjing Metropolitan Area, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Dear,
I think that my comments were attend comply with expected
Author Response
Thank you for recognizing our work, your constructive comments have greatly contributed to our paper.
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
land-2338872
Influence of Built Environment on Older Adults' Travel Time: Evidence from the Nanjing Metropolitan Area, China.
The authors have made significant adjustments to the initial submission and I commend them for the efforts. However, they should realize that when reviewer present authors with queries they must answer or rebut such queries. In this case, the authors have not answered all the queries. Let me reiterate the unanswered queries as well as some new queries:
1. Lines 500-511, Why does the author write the contents of the conclusion of the paper here. Some of these descriptions have been repeated several times in Abstract and in Conclusion sections. Please either remove this paragraph or revise.
2. Related to rest of the work, several sections are repeated of the existing studies. The contribution of the new work claims from section 5 and hence the finding is very limited to the studies.
3. In introduction, before starting the mentioned references, there is a need to add 8-9 lines related to the subject of the paper and write in general introduction. After that you should connect them with the references.
4. In the conclusion section, please revise it and improve it by re-organizing it into one paragraph only including the suggested future work.
5. Novelty and contribution should be shown in introduction.
6. Control parameters of applied methods should be reported for each study case.
7. Please point out the comparison criteria for evaluating the performance of applied method.
8. Many references are not written in consistent and uniform manner. Please follow the journal templates to put the references in consistent manner.
9. Figure 5 is still unclear. Authors should improve them (scale and both label axes).
10. The author should add the flowchart of the method which are used in the article.
11. Future study issues are not promising.
12. Manuscript is poorly written and contains many grammatical errors. It needs to be rewritten and proofread for grammatical errors by a native English speaker.
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Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The title should state what kind of travel mode the study is assessing, the abstract does not give that information either. And it should be mentioned in the abstract as well.
Introduction:
Page 1 line 38-39. Reference is missing for the statement: ¨Older adults perceive travel differently from that of the general population; moreover, they are also less mobile relative to their younger counterparts¨
In the introduction, there is no explanation about what kind of transport mode is the study assessing, whether it is public transport only, private cars or what is the scope.? Active travel? Or just walking? The time and the perception of travel time will obviously change depending on the means of transport.
Page 3 line 119, reference is missing, what studies?
There is missing some contextualization regarding age-friendly cities, active ageing, and healthy ageing concepts that could help to justify the research topic.
If the focus of this paper is just on walking, the literature review should consider just studies about walking travel time not all.
Methodology:
It is not clear the data sources, the authors state that they have performed face-to-face structured interviews about daily travel time. When has it been applied?
And by the other hand travel behaviour information is taken from a travel survey, this is another survey? So older people interviewed are not the same ones who answered the travel survey?
Did the surveys were performed at homes? Or where? How long it took?
In Table 1, the travel time variable is regarding walking trips, this refers to daily walking trips?
Page 5. Line 186-188. Based on which studies about travel behaviour?
The built environment variables are based on a 1km buffer zone, this analysis should be done considering the road network as a service area, not just a buffer.
Did all these variables were calculated for each interviewed person's home?
Page 6. Line 191. Do daily trips refer to just walking trips?
There is a mix between the results and the description of the methodology. For example, in the statistical analysis section, you are already giving some results (og 6 lines 197-209, figure 2). I suggest separating the methodology from the results. In this section, you should just describe what kind of statistical analysis did you use.
The paper talks about the psychological factors and perceptions of older people, but it is not clear how did you assess them? It is included in the survey? More explanation is needed.
Page 8. Why do you hypothesize that ¨older adults’ psychological-perception elements during travel affect their travel behaviours, which will impact their travel decisions ¨; This should be based on previous studies.
What kind of questions did you do about their ¨psychological satisfaction? Where is this data coming from? It is not clear.
Some maps and georeferenced information could help to understand the study case and results.
Results:
Page 11. Lines 360-361. ¨More convenient travel from the place of residence to the destination will result in higher travel satisfaction for older adults and a greater willingness to travel. ¨ …. What do you refer whit ¨more convenient travel¨? What are the benefits of older people having ¨greater willingness to travel? …
Where do the statements from lines 363-366, come from?
Page 14, lines 447-448. It is obvious that time depends on distance. This comparison makes no sense.
There is a lot of text explaining the methodology and less focus on the results.
I suggest rewriting the methodology and results sections and separating them, now it seems mixed.
Discussion:
Page 15. Lines 462-463 what do you mean by the ¨sensitivity of older adults to different travel times? What is the sensitivity in this case?
Are we talking about travel sensitivity as travel environment perceptions (pg 7 line 233) or sensitivity to travel time perceptions? So, the time is not measured is just perceived in this case?
In line 465 you talk about different transport facilities, but it seems that the study is just about walking. It is still not clear.
It is not clear what the ¨convenience of travel¨ means.
More discussion should be addressed about the green space proportion and older adults' travel habits relationship (pages 15-16, lines 510-523. Although the results indicate that the more green area there is, the fewer elderly people walk, this should be analyzed in a global way because it seems to be a matter of connectivity and accessibility of facilities, basic services, or main destinations. It seems to me that one cannot say that the amount of green area is excessive or that it affects the physical activity of people, but in this case, one should emphasize the lack of density of activities. For this it would be interesting to see the spatial distribution of these variables on a map, it may coincide with peripheral areas of the city where there is generally more green area and less density of services, but in this case, it is decontextualized.
Some references are disconnected from the results, I suggest mixing the results and discussion section to avoid this.
Conclusion:
Should be improved, this section should highlight the key findings of the research not just focus on the limitations of the study. I suggest separating the limitations from the discussion and from the conclusions.
If the data is taken from two different surveys this might be stated as one limitation and the results should be considered just as a reference, please clarify this.
When I finish reading, I found out that it is just about walking, or at least I think, so it is about walking travel time. This should be better explained and referred to it not as ¨travel time¨ in general. One significant limitation is not considering the travel routes.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
land-2338872-peer-review-v2
Influence of Built Environment on Older Adults' Travel Time: Evidence from the Nanjing Metropolitan Area, China.
The authors have made significant adjustments to the initial submission and I commend them for the efforts. However, they should realize that when reviewer presents authors with queries they must answer or rebut such queries. In this case, the authors have not answered all the queries. Alternatively, the authors' responses to the referee's comments are incomplete, confusing, and incomprehensible. It is suggested that the editor remove this manuscript from the evaluation process.
Should in case the authors may want to submit the manuscript to other venues for publication, I would advise them to carefully take into consideration the point raised to them especially regarding the technical content of the manuscript, the organisation of the introduction and the survey. Let me reiterate the unanswered queries:
1. The current Conclusion is not a summary of the fulfilled workflow. The text is significantly similar to the Abstract which is a bad sign. In the conclusion section, please revise it and improve it by re-organizing it into one paragraph only including the suggested future work.
2. In Section Conclusions, the authors have mentioned that there are still some limitations of this work, but the authors did not explain specifically the limitations that would be improved to the future works.
3. Do the authors understand the reason for peer review? The reviews process aims to ensure the proposed methods are replicable or reproducible. The expert opinion also is meant to help the authors identify the weakness in their approach, experiment, and manuscript's content. Thus, a peer review is not just meant for questions and answers. Suppose the author wants to resubmit the same manuscript for re-review in this journal or other journals. In that case, the authors should refer to papers published in top-ranked journals to see how the contents are presented and organized well as the quality. The authors should also discuss relevant recent works to give the reader a thorough grounding on the state-of-the-art.
4. Even though the authors claim a native English speaker has proofread the manuscript, there are still too many grammatical issues in the article. Many expressions and languages used are inappropriate.
5. Non-inclusion of some 8-9 lines in the beginning of the Introduction. I queried the Non-inclusion of some 8-9 lines in the beginning of the Introduction and the authors indicated that it is in line 69, page 2. However, what I am seeing here differently.
6. I queried the revision of Abstract in present tense only. Non-inclusion of a 8-9 lines. While the authors did not revise the Abstract. However, what I am seeing here – many sentences are written in past tense. For instance, Line 10, “In this study, we thoroughly examined…”, Line 12, “We conducted structured face-to-face...”, etc.
7. The authors claimed that they have edited the work sufficiently, but the work is still fraught with numerous grammatical errors. For example, in line 12 of the Abstract, the authors said “We conducted structured face-to-face...”, and in line 19 “When the distance to green spaces...”, furthermore, in line 46 of the Introduction “The travel behavior of older adults are more sensitive.... There are other numerous instances . . . that require editing in the manuscript.
8. Lines 69-76, please revise all these sentences in to present tense only.
9. I also requested for: please revise it and improve it by re-organizing it into one paragraph only including the suggested future work. Unfortunately, the author overlooked the same.
10. Novelty and contribution should be shown in introduction.
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Author Response
Thank you for your comments, we have carefully revised the paper based on the comments. Please see the attachment for the revised paper and point-to-point responses.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
In table 1, it data should be specified by travel mode.
Figure 7, is missing the legend, what is each colour mean?
When the authors talk about ¨each trip¨ in the questionnaire survey, to what trip is referred? For instance in fig. 3, it is in general? or it is asked for each type of trip? or for each trip time?
It is still not clear if there are two different surveys.
Avoid the use of the word ¨elderly¨ it is considered to be despective (ageism).
In point 8 of the author´s response: ¨The improvement of the willingness to travel can make the elderly participate in travel more, and replace some physical activities with travel [46].¨ This statement is not clear, what kind of travel are we talking about, do you mean that they replace physical activity for active travel or for motorized travel? ...If you refer to active travel I suggest including some discussion about the benefits of active travel for older people´s health and to avoid social insolation.
Results and conclusion should be separated.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
The paper has not been improved up to mark. In addition, the author’s responses are not satisfactory.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 4
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
The paper has not been improved up to mark. In addition, the author’s responses are not satisfactory.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear,
The study has weak scientific soundness, making it unsuitable to publish at Land journal.
In my opinion，
- the objective tha paper must be reviewed to make the alignment with methodologie proposed.
- Also, the survey used must be better explored on paper.
- Describe step by step and include a flowchart.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has been well improved, the topic is interesting and practical. The results have been clearly presented. The considerable first-hand survey data is precious for this kind of research and can provide a reference for building environment management. Check figure 4 for a better format.
Reviewer 3 Report
land-2249270-peer-review-v1
Influence of Built Environment on Older Adults' Travel Time: Evidence
from Nanjing Metropolitan Area, China.
Dear Editor,
The author shares a study on influence of built environment on older adults' travel time. The topics seems to be interested. Nevertheless, the manuscript comes along with some deficiencies. Author is asked to answer and implement in manuscript all serious issues and deficiencies.
Authors should clarify the following comments:
1. In abstract, some sentences are lengthy, and are written in past tense, for example <…was comprehensively examined in this study>. The entire abstract should be in simple present tense. The author is suggested to revise all lengthy sentences available in abstract as well as in entire paper.
2. In introduction, before starting the mentioned references, there is a need to add 8-9 lines related to the subject of the paper and write in general introduction. After that you should connect them with the references.
3. The manuscript is poorly structured. Why is a literature review jam-packed within the introduction and not presented as a standalone section?
4. The text written in various Figures, particularly Figure 4, are not clear and hence not readable. All the diagrams should be re-plotted with good resolution. In addition, the Figure captions need to be modified for better understanding. Author is suggested to address this problem.
5. I am curious that are there any limitations to the proposed algorithm? If yes, the authors should identify it in the paper so that it would be an idea to improve the algorithm for future works.
6. In the conclusion section, please revise it and improve it by re-organizing it into one paragraph only including the suggested future work.
7. The comparative studies seem insufficient, which cannot verify the effectiveness of the proposed operators and methods. The language is substandard and needs significant improvement.
8. The results are presented properly however, the discussion based on results is somehow weak. Specifically, the implications derived from results can be added/improved.
9. Manuscript is poorly written and contains many grammatical errors. It needs to be rewritten and proofread for grammatical errors by a native English speaker.
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