PONE-D-20-30079

Spatiotemporal filtering method for detecting kinematic waves in a connected environment

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chung,

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Feng Chen

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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"Dong-Kyu Kim was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT  No. 2020R1F1A1074395.(https://www.nrf.re.kr/eng/index)

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This paper proposes a spatiotemporal filtering method for detecting kinematic waves in a connected environment. The research topic is interesting and worth of investigation. However, the research gap is not stated clearly in the Introduction or Background Section. The research gap is very important, as it implies the potential contribution of this research.

According to the Data Section, the data on vehicle trajectories are collected on June 15, 2005 from 7:50 to 8:35 A.M. They are too old, and the observation period is short. The empirical analysis conducted on the data observed in recent years and during a long period (such as a week or a month) is preferred.

The logistic regression proposed for identifying the KW is somewhat simple. As the observed data are spatially and temporally correlated, accounting for the spatial and temporal correlations in the logistic model is suggested. The following is some representative works on spatial and temporal regression models applied in the field of transportation engineering for the references:

Investigating the impacts of real-time weather conditions on freeway crash severity: A Bayesian spatial analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020, 17(8), 2768.

Jointly modeling area-level crash rates by severity: A Bayesian multivariate random-parameters spatio-temporal Tobit regression. Transportmetrica A: Transport Science, 2019, 15(2): 1867-1884.

Their findings indicate that accommodating spatial and temporal correlations can significantly improve model fit and reduce model misspecification.

Besides, more discussions on the results and the practical implications of the findings are expected.

Reviewer #2: The topic of this paper is interesting. The methods sound. The results are meaningful and useful. There are several suggestions to improve this paper.

1. How the data of the trajectories of individual vehicles in all of the lanes along the 640-m section of the freeway were collected? The authors could refer to the following one if the video technique is used.

[1] “Using the visual intervention influence of pavement markings for rutting mitigation-part I: preliminary experiments and field tests”, International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 2019, 20(6), 734-746.

2. More references of logit models are needed. For example, the following ones.

[2]  “Investigating the Differences of Single- and Multi-vehicle Accident Probability Using Mixed Logit Model", Journal of Advanced Transportation, 2018, UNSP 2702360.

[3] Analysis of hourly crash likelihood using unbalanced panel data mixed logit model and real-time driving environmental big data. 2018, JOURNAL OF SAFETY RESEARCH. 65: 153-159.

3. The definition of the figures is not high enough.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Spatiotemporal filtering method for detecting kinematic waves in a connected environment

PONE-D-20-30079R1

Dear Dr. Chung,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Feng Chen

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No