Public Transport-Based Crowdshipping for Sustainable City Logistics: Assessing Economic and Environmental Impacts

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is interesting but some assumptions seem weak, or need to be elaborated; therefore the following is suggested:

47 -  environmental friendliness: is it really so? are goods delivered to the lockers by rail or rubber-tired modes? If the former, ok; if the latter it is not fully environmental-friendly; please elaborate

158 - how was assessed the reliability of social media respondents? which social media?

179 - What COPERT version?

Table 2 - are these vehicles really "circulating"? Or rather do the data concern the "registered" fleet? In this case the fleet considered can be underestimated. If this is the circulating fleet, please report how data were collected

213-214 Do the authors think that  assumptions on  socio-demographic evolution and metro network expansion are realistic? For the former, what growth rate is expected by the 2025 horizon? the seniority index is expected to increase as well Europewide, and this affects the extent and quality of e-commerce. The authors' opinion on both issues would be appreciated

227 APLs and IT: property? the transit company?

229 "order is collected the same day": no way!!!! evidence shows that collection slots have to last longer; on top of that, what if the parcel is not collected timely? Lockers jam, fines for recipients? How this affect the model? Please elaborate the reason of such assumption

221-237 Are there any references for the expenditure items provided?

263 - How much is close? Distance affects the size of parcels to pick-up….Moreover, underground network in Rome is neither large nor even covering large areas of the city; how come 75% of interviewees state closeness; please, elaborate

Figure 2 and 295: maybe the graphics are not clear; on the one hand it is stated an "upsurge of emissions saved", but from the graphics (Y-axis), it seems that the tons of pollutants increase. Please check

In Germany, the Packstation is successfully operated since long time; I would suggest to have a look at literature on that service (and/or the likes) to corroborate some assumptions

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper discusses effect of environment and economic to the crowd-shippers’ behavior. Since it is well-structured, well-written, and well designed, I enjoyed reading. I only have some minor comments:

1.     Both unlabeled alternatives are described with 4 attributes as shown in table 1. All linear models are required to have independency between attributes. Of course, since the survey is based on the D-optimal design, it has the independency. However, I wonder their relationships in reality. For instance, the availability of parcel tracking may be related to the shipping fee, and the availability of delivery and time schedule flexibility may have a correlation with shipping time. This may lead to covariance in parameter estimations. How authors can defend it?

 2.      I wonder the specification of utility of “no choice”. Authors should add detail explanation why it is only depends on the “age”.

3.     The evaluation of “no choice” would be related to the crowd-shippers’ indifference. It would be valuable for the further research by reflecting the indifference behavior such as Cantillo et al. (2010).

 Cantillo, V., Amaya, J., and Ortúzar, J. de D. (2010). Thresholds and indifference in stated choice surveys. Transportation Research Part B, 44(6), pp. 753-763.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This research explores a globally known urban freight problem, namely parcel delivery. Knowing the increasing level of attention to the future of shared economy and crowd sourcing, the findings of this paper are sound and relevant to both academia and industry. Although the research problem is relatively new, the methods are not very novel. I would also suggest providing more explanation on the methodological approach and why they have been selected to address the objectives of this research. 

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round  2

Reviewer 1 Report

comments provided, not everything was properly addressed (e.g. daily pick-up at lockers) but it is ok