Social Sustainable Urban Air Mobility in Europe
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Overall Comments
This paper is a literature review addressing the impact of passenger Urban Air Mobility (pUAM) on the social sustainability of European urban transportation systems. The results indicate that early market pUAM may lead to an unbalanced distribution of potential benefits, with services tailored to benefit a limited number of citizens. The paper is a valuable contribution to a research area that is becoming increasingly important. The following comments should help to improve the paper.
Proofreading
The whole paper would benefit from careful proofreading by a native English speaker. Here are some examples from the abstract:
Lines 9-10: “This research emphasises on the social footprint…”
=> “This research emphasises the social footprint…” (delete “on”; this phrase is used many times in the paper)
Lines 12-13: “Assessed it the prospective impact of a pUAM introduction on the overall affordability, inclusivity, accessibility, and satisfaction rating of transportation systems.”
=> this sentence is difficult to understand so it should be re-written
Line 16: “must be seen negative”
=> “must be seen as negative” (add “as”)
Citations
I suggest checking the format of the citations. Several citations include page numbers. For example:
Line 45: “[7] (p. 16).”
=> maybe move the page number to the reference list
Other citations have a message about a reference not found. For example:
Lines 47-48: “[Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden wer- den.].”
Numbers
I suggest changing the format of the following numbers (replace full stop with a comma):
Line 24: “around 10.000”
=> “around 10,000”
Line 28: “about 160.000”
=> “about 160,000”
Line 451: “$US 100.000”
=> “$US 100,000”
Footnotes
Several footnotes include internet urls. Maybe change all of the urls to citations and add to the References section. For example:
Lines 143-144: “(see: Eltis: https://www.eltis.org/mobility-plans/city-database)”
Section Numbers
The numbers for all sections in the Results should be checked and revised. For example:
Line 246: “3.1. Affordability of pUAM”
=> “4.1. Affordability of pUAM”
Typos
There are some typos in the paper. As noted above, the whole paper would benefit from careful proofreading by a native English speaker.
Line 458: “The later decreases”
=> “The latter decreases” (correct the spelling of “latter”)
Lines 603-604: “to access and degrees vertiports”
=> “to access and leave vertiports” (change “degrees”)
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
your feedback has been much appreciated, thank you. Please find the list of revisions below:
Citations: You suggested checking the format of the citations. Several citations include page numbers and you suggested to move the page number to the reference list.
- All citations are checked and have a working link now.
- I did remove the page number from the text body and added them to the respective reference - but I decided to keep them in the text where a) I reference various slides from a single survey and b) where I used direct quotation.
Footnotes: You suggested to change all of the URLs in the footnotes to citations and add to the References section. For example: Lines 143-144: “(see: Eltis: https://www.eltis.org/mobility-plans/city-database)”
- I followed your suggestion.
Proofreading and Typos: You suggested that the whole paper would benefit from careful proofreading by a native English speaker.
- I followed your suggestion.
Numbers: You suggest changing full stop with a comma for certain numbers.
- I followed your suggestion.
Section Numbers: You suggested the numbers for all sections in the Results to be checked and revised.
- I followed your suggestion.
Yours sincerely
Tobias Biehle
-24.07.2022
Reviewer 2 Report
This topic is novel and intresting, however, there is a lack of explanation of the second conclusion.
It is noted that your manusript needs carefully editing by someone with expertise in technical english editing paying particular attention to grammar and sentence structure so that the study are clearer to the reader.
Line 96 but also-and
Line 139, thus-then
Line 165, “make them” should be added before “equally”
Line 188, form-for
Line 198, as well-as well as
Line 203, the satisfaction-is the satisfaction
Line 210, but also-and
Line 210, what is the meaning of “less narrow”?
Line 247 suggest-suggests
Line 266 considerations-consideration
The content of the first paragraph of 3.2 is not so consistent with the title “Accessibility of pUAM to mobility impaired groups”.
Line 344 delete “than”
Line 374 Preis-Price, what is the meaning of the word “Hornung”?
Line 393 Thereby-In summary
Lines 409-411 the sentence “…strongly or somewhat disagree on the question…” is confusing
Line 427 board-boarding
Line 465 high-long
Line 501 though-thought, will-would
Line 523 delete “are revealed that”
Line 524 delete “are discussed that”
Line 533 there should be an object after the word “mitigating”
Line 644 delete “and” (before on the other hand)
Line 668 expect-expected
What is the difference between “3.1 Affordability of pUAM” and “3.4.2 Perceived Affordability”?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
your feedback has been much appreciated, please find the list of revisions below:
Proofreading: You noted that the manuscript needs carefully editing by someone with expertise in technical English and also assisted me with various correction (thank you!).
- The manuscript has been proofread by a technical English native speaker. The whole manuscript is improved in grammar and sentence structure.
Conclusion: You suggested a lack of explanation of the second conclusion in the abstract, meaning that from a pUAM introduction “an unbalanced distribution of potential benefits and risks must be anticipated.”
- The sentence is now changed into “Early market pUAM may lead to an unbalanced distribution of potential benefits, with services tailored to address only a limited number of citizens.”
Affordability (4.1) versus perceived affordability (4.4.2): You suggested a clearer difference between both subchapters.
- I added an explanation in the introduction of the chapter 4.4.2: “Regarding the perceived affordability, studies aim to forecast not the actual cost of using a service for the individual (see chapter 4.1), but the threshold above which average customers become unsatisfied with the pricing scheme and unwilling to pay for the transport mode [cf. 65].”
Accessibility for mobility-impaired groups versus inclusivity of public transport system: You suggested the content of the first paragraph of 4.2 is not so consistent with the title “Accessibility of pUAM to mobility impaired groups”
- I changed the indicator name from ““Accessibility of pUAM for mobility impaired groups” to “Inclusivity of pUAM for mobility impaired groups” throughout the document. The paragraph also benefited from language editing, to make the line of reasoning clearer to the reader.
Yours sincerely
Tobias Biehle
-24.07.2022
