Dynamic Planning of Construction Site for Linear Projects

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review

The paper addresses a research on the topic of dynamic planning of construction site locations for linear projects.

The research frames on the journal topics.

The paper is well structures and well written with a comprehensive language that grabs the reader.

There are some minor corrections and improvements that are suggested as follows, namely to improve the overall quality of the paper that is found already good:

Line 22 – suggestion to replace “originates” by “derives”;

Line 23 and others (examples 57, 269), motorway and highway are both used apparently with no criteria. It is suggested that motorway could be used on the case studies presentation if this is part of the project description and in all other use the term highway.

Line 26 – despite presenting the value in euros, it could be interesting to present percentages as it is more comprehensive for the readers and might be more appealing.

Line 32 – suggestion to replace “construed” by “established”;

The introduction should be better structured to highlight the research gap and the contributions to the boy of knowledge. It seems also that enters on the methodology.

Line 61 – Literature review is mixed with methodology. This should be improved.

Line 175 to 179 – these sentences are essential and the paper could benefit from a short reflection regarding the cost impacts of site planning. The focus is infrastructural projects but the improvement could briefly explore the differences and the relevance of the topic in linear (infrastructure) projects.

Line 183 – suggestion to replace “followings” by “following”;   

Figure 3 – CH ???

Line 271 – suggestion to replace “lasted” by “was”;

Line 276 – “and the total cost of the project 120.000.000 €”   suggestion to erase what is scratched;

Line 277 - suggestion to replace “According the chosen execution methodology of the constructor” by “Following the contractor’s execution methodology”;

Line 283 – Contract not Contracts, I suppose?

Images are always good to help readers to understand the scope, the dimension, the places of the case studies, among others. Images 1 and 2 should be improved in order to make the abovementioned possible, as they are somewhat confusing due to mixed concepts as projects, case studies, contracts… Therefore this should be improved.

Line 412 and forward – The conclusion should be improved namely in terms of its structure. One suggestion is overall findings, in-depth analysis between the outcomes achieved and each case study's particular characteristics to provide the best understatement of the drivers of profits by relocating the site and final overall conclusions and future research.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

It is a well written scientific paper with all the required elements, written at a high quality. I do not think it requires any changes in order to be published.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The topic is an interesting and original. Dynamic planning of the construction site is necessary in practice, especially in infrastructure projects, but also in the case of, for example, bridge structures with changing water levels.

I understand the accepted text mining methodology, but I think the keywords were misplaced. The literature review is largely based on obsolete items. There are few articles from 2015-2020 (6 out of 39). However, you should rethink the methodology of selecting the literature and add / replace it with newer items, which are a lot ...

There are a lot of typos in the text, even in the titles of subsections, e.g. 3.1. "Decsion" variables for site location.

The authors wrote "The following cost parameters / factors could indicate the" ideal "site location ..." and "According to the literature and the experience of site construction managers, the parameters that should be considered ...". apart from the fact that the use of the term "ideal" is, in my opinion, an abuse, in addition, the authors do not provide information on what literature they based their choice of factors on (there are only two references (38 and 39) for only two factors - - what does this prove?), or on what research (were they conducted?), in which group of managers? etc. This requires explanation, especially in the context of using the term "ideal" ...

Figure 3 shows the ideal location for cost reasons. Is it really an ideal location? Or maybe only the best of the 8 selected? I think there are better ones. Anyway, it is not described in the graph or in the text what the symbols CH1-CH8 mean ... And ultimately do only transport costs decide about the best choice of location? This should be justified.

Where did the amounts come from: "According to the presented algorithm, a profit of approximately 100.000 € to 186.000 € was created for the second, third and fourth project respectively". Describing that the algorithm is not enough. Especially since it is probably not about the algorithm, but about the procedure in Fig. 4. Well, the authors did not specify which algorithm is meant.
Later, 24 cases are briefly presented, which, however, do not explain much and contribute to the article.

The cases are also not clearly described, in principle, a map is presented in the first case, but it is not known whether the cases concern one project and 4 different sections (contracts), or are they separate in terms of location and time?

In principle, there is no discussion of results and conclusions are general.
The article definitely requires a lot of work on the algorithm. The changes should concern a literature review, description of the algorithm, explanation and presentation of calculations, discussions, etc. So the structure should be changed and in my opinion the article should be rethought.
It is not suitable for publication in its present form.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

In my opinion, it is not important what software the authors used, but the settings and queries entered in the program. The authors take responsibility for this part, although I do not withdraw my previous comments.

The explanation is not very extensive and does not explain much: "of more than twenty years in the field of public highway construction in Greece". There seems to be a lack of research methodology. It is not known how many experts there were - is it the authors of the article? The use of knowledge and experience is commendable, but as I wrote, the method of extracting data from experts should be given, but how was it done by the authors?

The authors did not explain where the cost calculations came from - they did not provide any calculations. So I repeat the question. Where did the amounts come from: "According to the presented algorithm, a profit of approximately 100.000 € to 186.000 € was created for the second, third and fourth project respectively". Describing that the algorithm is not enough. Especially since it is probably not about the algorithm, but about the procedure in Fig. 4. Well, the authors did not specify which algorithm is meant.
The authors' explanation is not satisfactory in response to the review. The authors did not provide any explanations in the text of the article.

In the discussion section, the authors should show the advantages and disadvantages of this approach and its practical use.

Author Response

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