An Extended Model for Disaster Relief Operations Used on the Hagibis Typhoon Case in Japan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper is interesting to read, however, it could be improved before it gets accepted for publication. Please see my comments below:

1) The introduction section in the current version needs to be improved. Currently it comprises of both the introduction and motivation behind this work as well as the literature review. The introduction section should describe the motivation, problem statement and brief description about this research. Literature review section should be a separate section, which at the end explains about the research gaps.

2) Title for section 2 needs to be changed from "Results", to "Literature Review"? 

3) Model description is well written with all the constraints nicely explained. However, author did not describe limitations of the model with respect to real life scenario

4) The results section is well analyzed, however, it can be improved by replacing some of the tables with visuals/graphs for improved readability 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the positive review.

We have revised the manuscript according to the comments. We have used tracked changes in the attached file to show the revisions from the previous version. A thorough English language revision is performed, but these format and grammatical changes are not tracked though to avoid too many marked changes in the manuscript.

1) The introduction section in the current version needs to be improved. Currently it comprises of both the introduction and motivation behind this work as well as the literature review. The introduction section should describe the motivation, problem statement and brief description about this research. Literature review section should be a separate section, which at the end explains about the research gaps.

We have added a section to the introduction describing more of the motivation and a further description of the problem on hand. Chapter 2 is renamed to “Literature review” and a paragraph is added at the end explaining the research gaps.

2) Title for section 2 needs to be changed from "Results" to "Literature Review"? 

The title is changed as suggested.

3) Model description is well written with all the constraints nicely explained. However, author did not describe limitations of the model with respect to real life scenario.

We have added a paragraph describing limitations at the end of Chapter 4.

4) The results section is well analyzed, however, it can be improved by replacing some of the tables with visuals/graphs for improved readability 

We have included Figures 4, 5 and 6 at the end of the computational results chapter for illustrating the load flow in a better way. In addition, we have added some extra text to explain the results shown in the tables.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper focus on a generalization of the lexicographical dynamic flow model based on multi-objective optimization for solving the multi-commodity aid distribution problem. In my opinion, the study of this paper is interesting and valuable. But some concerns arise when reading the document.

1. It is important to note that manuscripts require careful editing by professional technical English editors, with particular attention to some English spelling and sentence structure, so that readers can clearly understand the purpose and results of the research.
2. The important results of the work should be put into the end of Abstract.
3. First try to declare why the existing methodologies are not sufficient to provide good results, further how this proposed methodology addresses the gap let out by the existing methodology.
4. The exposition on data acquisition starting from line 194 of the manuscript can be more detailed.
5. It is suggested that a note on figure I be added to the manuscript
6. All the tables in the paper should be changed into a uniform three-line table.
7. The format of this manuscript should be adjusted according to the uniform rules
8. In the model description of Part IV, the formulas involved should be in a special table.
9. In addition to stating the shortcomings of the paper at the present stage, it can briefly give some directions for future research.
10. Conclusion should be very crisp and to the point. Basically, you should briefly state your contributions, limitations, and emphasize the scientific value of the paper.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the positive review.

We have revised the manuscript according to the comments. We have used tracked changes in the attached file to show the revisions from the previous version. A thorough English language revision is performed, but these format and grammatical changes are not tracked though to avoid too many marked changes in the manuscript.

1. It is important to note that manuscripts require careful editing by professional technical English editors, with particular attention to some English spelling and sentence structure, so that readers can clearly understand the purpose and results of the research.

We have thoroughly revised the English language in the manuscript to make it grammatically correct and easier to understand.

2. The important results of the work should be put into the end of Abstract.

We have rewritten the abstract to better reflect the contribution of the research and the major results.

3. First try to declare why the existing methodologies are not sufficient to provide good results, further how this proposed methodology addresses the gap let out by the existing methodology.

This point relates to point 1 from Reviewer 1. We have added a paragraph at the end of the literature review chapter explaining the research gaps and how our research tries to meet them.

4. The exposition on data acquisition starting from line 194 of the manuscript can be more detailed.

We have rewritten the section on page 6 describing more details about the collection of data.

5. It is suggested that a note on figure I be added to the manuscript.

It is unclear what is meant with a note to the figure. We have added the reference to the source of the figure in the caption and hope this is sufficient.

6. All the tables in the paper should be changed into a uniform three-line table.

The tables are changed to the requested format.

7. The format of this manuscript should be adjusted according to the uniform rules.

We have tried to use the format specified by the journal throughout the whole manuscript.

8. In the model description of Part IV, the formulas involved should be in a special table.

We have listed the sets, parameters, variables, and criteria in separate tables. We have not included the formulas in tables though, as we find it more appropriate to explain them as they appear.

9. In addition to stating the shortcomings of the paper at the present stage, it can briefly give some directions for future research.

We have added some limitations to the model at the end of Chapter 4 and included some future directions of research in the conclusion.

10. Conclusion should be very crisp and to the point. Basically, you should briefly state your contributions, limitations, and emphasize the scientific value of the paper.

We have rewritten the conclusion to meet the requirements stated.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors use a multi-objective approach to solve the post-disaster commodity distribution problem and combine it with the actual division of the objective levels, and then optimize the objective function. Meanwhile, the author verify the feasibility of the model with the example of the 2019 typhoon disaster in Hagibis, Japan, which is of great practical importance. The following should be added in the manuscript for better readability and presentation.

1. There are problems with the title of the literature review, please add other relevant literature to support the author’s view. It is advisable for the author to expand it to 40-50 articles to reflect the depth and breadth of the research.
2. Please indicate the innovation of the article at the end of the literature review.

3. Some paragraphs of article are short, please combine this part with other paragraphs.

4. It is suggested to swap the position of part 3 and part 4, i.e., describe the model first and then give the case.

5. Please add literature showing the persuasiveness of the authors' division of the goal into two levels.

6. It is recommended to put the model implementation environment part in computational experiments.

7. It is recommended to mark the results of the optimization according to a single criterion in Tables 9 and 10 with other colors for exceeding the demand.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the suggestions to improve our article. Our replies to the comments are shown below:

1. There are problems with the title of the literature review, please add other relevant literature to support the author’s view. It is advisable for the author to expand it to 40-50 articles to reflect the depth and breadth of the research.

We have inserted a new section 2.1 in the literature review including several new references to papers on humanitarian logistics. Then, the next sections include as previously, references directly related to the model presented in our paper.

2. Please indicate the innovation of the article at the end of the literature review.

We have added a paragraph explaining the main innovation at the end of chapter 2.

3. Some paragraphs of article are short, please combine this part with other paragraphs.

We have merged several paragraphs to make the text more compact.

4. It is suggested to swap the position of part 3 and part 4, i.e., describe the model first and then give the case.

We have swapped chapters 3 and 4 according to the suggestion.

5. Please add literature showing the persuasiveness of the authors' division of the goal into two levels.

The concept of splitting the objectives in two levels is mainly taken from the paper by Tirado et al. (2014) and previous work, which gives the basic model further developed in our paper. It is generally acknowledged in humanitarian operations that distributing the maximum amount of aid has a higher priority than other objectives. This is already written in the paper, but we have added a sentence when presenting the objectives in page 13 describing that this idea is taken from Tirado et al.

6. It is recommended to put the model implementation environment part in computational experiments.

We have moved the section describing the model implementation to the start of chapter 5.

7. It is recommended to mark the results of the optimization according to a single criterion in Tables 9 and 10 with other colors for exceeding the demand.

The results in tables 9 and 10 exceeding 100 percent demand is marked with a light red colour as suggested.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf