Research on Uncertainty Evolution of Ship Collision Status Based on Navigation Environment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article requires a serious necessary correction. The drawings were not legible enough. The article was prepared in a hurry, without reflecting on what had been prepared. Despite the inaccurate indication of the area of the sea where the ship collision risk analysis was carried out, no detailed conclusions concerning it were drawn. The conclusions were broadly formulated. I have a feeling that there is a lack of information about the purpose of the article - theory or practice, or linking theory with practice. Too many vague theory that may not necessarily be of practical importance. Lack of information - how the conclusions from the work are to help the maritime administration staff in assessing the risk of a collision. After reading and understanding the problems presented in the paper, will it be possible to gain a better understanding of maritime traffic in terms of collision risk assessment?

Required linguistic and graphic correction of the work (line 38, 108, 161, 162, 168, 169 and next, 214?? etc.).

Table 1 & 2 - why this type of table was selected?

Line 233 - no information on which area of the sea is concerned.

Table 3 channel width – a lack of units [m], [km], [Nm]?

Figure 4, 5 & 7 and other - drawing too small, no legibility. Two different figures with a number of 7??

Figure 6 – where is the point (0;0) in the diagram. What does it mean the value: -2000?

Figure 6 – required better explain the conclusions of the drawing.

Author Response

Response to the reviewers

Reviewer 1:

Reviewer #1: The article requires a serious necessary correction. The drawings were not legible enough. The article was prepared in a hurry, without reflecting on what had been prepared. Despite the inaccurate indication of the area of the sea where the ship collision risk analysis was carried out, no detailed conclusions concerning it were drawn. The conclusions were broadly formulated. I have a feeling that there is a lack of information about the purpose of the article - theory or practice, or linking theory with practice. Too many vague theory that may not necessarily be of practical importance. Lack of information - how the conclusions from the work are to help the maritime administration staff in assessing the risk of a collision. After reading and understanding the problems presented in the paper, will it be possible to gain a better understanding of maritime traffic in terms of collision risk assessment?

Response: This paper mainly discusses the rules of the evolution of the navigation environment, as well as the changes of the overall risk in the process of the evolution of the navigation environment.

Comment 1: Required linguistic and graphic correction of the work (line 38, 108, 161, 162, 168, 169 and next, 214?? etc.).

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have further modified the linguistic and graphics in the paper.

Comment 2: Table 1 & 2 - why this type of table was selected?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have modified relevant nouns in Table 1 and Table 2. The classification of navigation environment in existing research is very clear. Table 2 is deleted according to the environmental characteristics of the study waters

Comment 3: Line 233 - no information on which area of the sea is concerned.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have supplemented the description of the study area in Section 4.1.

Comment 4: Figure 4, 5 & 7 and other - drawing too small, no legibility. Two different figures with a number of 7??

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I redraw Figures 3 to 9 to make the picture look clearer. Number of Figure 8 has been modified.

Comment 5: Figure 6 – where is the point (0;0) in the diagram. What does it mean the value: -2000?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. -2000 has no special meaning. I have corrected the coordinate axis

Comment 6: Figure 6 – required better explain the conclusions of the drawing.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation.Figure 6 is mainly intended to show that the probability of the navigation environment in which the ship collides is at a high level when the probability is calculated using this method.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review for article entitled: „Research on Uncertainty Evolution of Ship Collision Status based on Navigation Environment “

1.        The Abstract could be better structured. It is very difficult for the reader to understand what the authors want to say. Statements such as:

Ø  „There is the need to study the evolution laws of navigation environmental risks of ships when in complicated water areas, as well as to promote the establishment of water safety with an early-warning system. “– it is not clear which evolution lows; early warning system for what?

Ø  Line 18, the authors mention AIS data, but later in the article there is no mention of it;

Ø  “and results show that natural environmental wind is the dominant influencing factor of navigation safety during navigation environmental evolution.” – not clear?

Ø  Line 25, “early-warning of navigation environmental risks” – what risk, is it collision, grounding, pollution, or accidents? This line missing dot at the end of the sentence

2.         Key words: maritime early – warning; - In Abstract is named early-warning of navigation environmental risks and early-warning system? Key words are separated with a semicolon and comma, not according JMSE template.

3.         Lines 38-40, references [1-3] not cited according to JMSE template – check all.

4.         Lines 54-55, the statement is not clear.

5.         Line 64 – “as well as AIS statistic” – statistic or data, and which statistic?

6.         Chapter 2 – recommend to rename it to Methodology with subchapters, and to simply write what methods and data will be used to determine results.

7.         Table 1 – add references if it is according [14-16]. Also, Table should be better structured, Natural environmental impact factors should be renamed into hydrometeorological factors, Traffic environmental impact factors – delete environmental, if we are talking about navigational channels and there are some channel barriers than it is not channel for navigation or there is a bridge, lock etc.

8.         Line 100 – thenavigation – missing space

9.         Line 102 – equation should be numbered as (1).

10.     Above equation (1) authors mentioned m levels, so m is missing in equation (1)?

11.     Line 113 – impact probability notation should be in the line with sentence and typed in Math type if not, check all other – lines 152, 161, 162, 168, 169, etc.

12.     Subchapter 2.3. – it is not clear weather author calculating collision probability or accident probability, also in line 118 cited reference [17-18] for Bayes conditional probability?

13.     Line 140-141 - this is obvious, what is the purpose of this statement?

14.     Line 184 – Therefore.

15.     Line 192 – 36=729, not clear?

16.     Equation (11-14) – check font size.

17.     Figure 1 – title, among grades or levels?

18.     Figure 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 – too small and low quality. Fig. 7 – delete non-English terminology, Fig. 9 – use a), b), c)….. with titles of each graph, according to the JMSE template. Lines 335 – 338 – Fig. 4-6 - not clear which change in months?

19.     Line 322 – 73 accidents or collisions.

Author Response

Response to the reviewers

Reviewer 2:

Reviewer #2:

Comment 1: The Abstract could be better structured. It is very difficult for the reader to understand what the authors want to say. Statements such as:

（1）There is the need to study the evolution laws of navigation environmental risks of ships when in complicated water areas, as well as to promote the establishment of water safety with an early-warning system. “– it is not clear which evolution lows; early warning system for what?

（2）Line 18, the authors mention AIS data, but later in the article there is no mention of it;

（3） “and results show that natural environmental wind is the dominant influencing factor of navigation safety during navigation environmental evolution.” – not clear?

（4）Line 25, “early-warning of navigation environmental risks” – what risk, is it collision, grounding, pollution, or accidents? This line missing dot at the end of the sentence

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. In this paper, AIS data is mainly used to calculate the ship flow in the water area. The study found that the change of wind had the greatest impact on the change of the whole day risk in the water areas. The accident samples studied in this paper are all ship collision accidents, and I have corrected the relevant statements.

Comment 2: Key words: maritime early – warning; - In Abstract is named early-warning of navigation environmental risks and early-warning system? Key words are separated with a semicolon and comma, not according JMSE template.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. Key words has been modified according to JMSE template. The early warning system refers to the assessment of the overall collision risk of the water area before the maritime department issues a navigation risk warning, so as to provide a reference for the maritime authorities.

Comment 3: Lines 38-40, references [1-3] not cited according to JMSE template – check all.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have revised it according to the reference format of JMSE.

Comment 4: Lines 54-55, the statement is not clear.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I would like to express that there are relatively few studies on the evolution of the navigation environment at this stage, and most of them focus on the navigation environment itself.

Comment 5: Line 64 – “as well as AIS statistic” – statistic or data, and which statistic?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. We mainly use the AIS data provided by the maritime department to make statistics on the traffic flow in the waters under our jurisdictional waters.

Comment 6: Chapter 2 – recommend to rename it to Methodology with subchapters, and to simply write what methods and data will be used to determine results.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. Methodology with subchapters has been added, and briefly introduced the relevant methods and datas.

Comment 7: Table 1 – add references if it is according [14-16]. Also, Table should be better structured, Natural environmental impact factors should be renamed into hydrometeorological factors, Traffic environmental impact factors – delete environmental, if we are talking about navigational channels and there are some channel barriers than it is not channel for navigation or there is a bridge, lock etc.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have modified the relevant nouns according to your suggestions.

Comment 8: Line 100 – thenavigation – missing space

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have corrected the missing space

Comment 9: Line 102 – equation should be numbered as (1).

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. In line 102, (i=1,2,3, …, n) is the definition domain of .

Comment 10: Above equation (1) authors mentioned m levels, so m is missing in equation (1)?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I supplemented the definition field of equations

Comment 11:  Line 113 – impact probability notation should be in the line with sentence and typed in Math type if not, check all other – lines 152, 161, 162, 168, 169, etc.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have checked the relevant lists and updated them in the form of Mathtype.

Comment 12: Subchapter 2.3. – it is not clear weather author calculating collision probability or accident probability, also in line 118 cited reference [17-18] for Bayes conditional probability?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. Yes, Bayesian conditional probability is used for the calculation of probability. For example, if the weather cannot directly calculate the probability, frequency is used instead

Comment 13: Line 140-141 - this is obvious, what is the purpose of this statement?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I want to express that some probabilities can be calculated, but some probabilities that cannot be calculated directly can be replaced by frequencies

Comment 14: Line 184 – Therefore.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have corrected the spelling of the word.

Comment 15: Line 192 – 36=729, not clear?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. “=”It should be modified as “to”. This sentence is mainly used to express the change range of the evolution quantity

Comment 16: Equation (11-14) – check font size.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have corrected the sizes of the above equation

Comment 17: Figure 1 – title, among grades or levels?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I want to express that it is a change of level. So I have the same word expression

Comment 18: Figure 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 – too small and low quality. Fig. 7 – delete non-English terminology, Fig. 9 – use a), b), c)….. with titles of each graph, according to the JMSE template. Lines 335 – 338 – Fig. 4-6 - not clear which change in months?

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I corrected all the above pictures to make it clearer.

Comment 19: Line 322 – 73 accidents or collisions.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. The accident cases selected in this paper are all ship collision accidents. I've corrected it on line 322.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer #3: This paper performs a risk-based study on shipping accidents where it assesses risk via accident occurrence probability; ignoring the consequence part of risk assessment. The paper is intended be centered on “uncertainty evolution” but the paper does not provide enough background to assess the scientific merit of this idea as applied to ship collisions. The paper mentions risk evolution, uncertainty evolution, environmental risk evolutions of ships, evolution laws, an evolutionary trend model, uncertainty evolutionary rules of navigation environment, etc. None of these terms or uses are defined or explained in the paper. These terms cannot be distinguished (or understood) from the papers current state. The application of “evolution” is not a common approach in risk-based studies and requires much more background on its foundations before readers can appreciate the scientific contribution of this study. There are other potential minor criticisms with the work but are unnecessary to describe until this major revision is addressed.

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. I have revised the article to a large extent, in which the significance of navigation environment evolution is described in more detail. This paper mainly studies the rules of the navigation environment in the process of continuous evolution, and when one or more navigation environments change, what is the overall risk evolution trend in the waters. I expact you can provide more suggestions to me.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

A number of changes have been made to improve the substantive quality of the article. Congratulations to the authors of this achievement. However, minor adjustments are needed:

line 145 - is "Enerally" - should be "Generally";

The drawings are clearer, but you could make better use of the available space (e.g. center justification).

Table 6 was not properly planned.

After line 485, line 505 appears. Is part of the article missing?

Author Response

Reviewer#1: A number of changes have been made to improve the substantive quality of the article. Congratulations to the authors of this achievement. However, minor adjustments are needed:

Comment 1: line 145 - is "Enerally" - should be "Generally"

Response:  Thanks for your correction. We have revised the spelling in all the manuscript.

Comment 2: The drawings are clearer, but you could make better use of the available space (e.g. center justification).

Response:  Thanks for your recommendation. We readjusted the layout of the drawings according to your suggestions.

Comment 3: Table 6 was not properly planned.

Response:  Thanks for your comment. We have modified Table 6 and added relevant instructions.

Comment 4: After line 485, line 505 appears. Is part of the article missing?

Response:  Thanks for your comment. Figure 9 has been analyzed in lines 352 to 357, and because this passage was inappropriate and inaccurate in this way, this paragraph was deleted.

Reviewer 3 Report

There seems to be no sincere attempt to improve the quality of this paper. After major revisions were suggested in a prior review, the majority of the revisions seem to be focused on updating the citation style.

Author Response

We carefully read the revision comments of each reviewer and made very serious revisions to the manuscript. In the initial revision, we improved the content of the abstract according to the opinions of all reviewers, strengthened the discussion on the significance of the study, reorganized the logic of the manuscript, and greatly improved the quality of the pictures. In addition, we also modified the format, punctuation and other details. In this revision, we focused on the revision of the language expression part of the manuscript. I believe this will be a valuable paper.

Thank you very much for your suggestion.