Peer Review History
Original SubmissionJuly 18, 2022 |
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PONE-D-22-20081Personal ethical settings for driverless cars and the utility paradox: an ethical analysis of public attitudes in UK and JapanPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wilkinson, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 07 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section: "I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests:Julian Savulescu is a Partner Investigator on an Australian Research Council grant LP190100841 which involves industry partnership from Illumina. He does not personally receive any funds from Illumina. He is an ethics consultant for Avon Cosmetics Ltd (2021-2023) and a Bioethics Committee consultant for Bayer" Please confirm that this does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, by including the following statement: "This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests). If there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared. Please include your updated Competing Interests statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: N/A ********** 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 ********** 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 ********** 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 study conducted two online surveys in UK and Japan to investigate the potential “utility paradox” of fully automated vehicles (AVs). The authors examined the purchase preference under different programming settings, including mandated and optional. Besides, the framing effect and the price sensitivity were also analyzed and discussed. The results of this paper may help the government or automobile manufacturers better understand the public’s attitude to the ethical issues of Avs. This paper is clear, interesting, and meaningful. However, the methods could be written in more detail. There are some suggestions are listed in the following: 1. In the introduction, the authors said that the 25% reduction in incapacitating injuries in the US is due to advanced motor vehicle design. However, the reduction is also related to other factors, such as advanced traffic signal control devices, better street and highway design, or education. More directed data sources may better support the authors’ ideas that AVs could reduce traffic crashes or collisions. Papers about CAV safety and simulation have proved the conclusion. 2. The personal information of the participants, such as race, gender, or age, is not discussed in the paper. If the survey has such information, it should be presented in the paper to help readers better understand the data and prerequisites for results. 3. What kinds of sampling method is applied in the paper, random or stratified sampling? Please illustrate in section 2.1. 4. In section 2.1, the authors estimated that a sample size of 200 people would have sufficient power to detect differences. The authors should illustrate the reasons why the authors make such assumptions. If some references could support your assumption, please cite them. 5. In section 2.5, the authors mention three different prices, but the reason why these three different prices are selected is not well-discussed. The determination of price setting and difference should be present in the paper. 6. In transportation engineering, the most common model for mode choice is the logit model. Please better explain why a normal distribution with a mean of 0 and variance of 1/τ is selected instead of the logit model. 7. In section 2.6, please explain the specific meaning of each population-level parameter, and how to tune the hyperparameters that should be presented in the paper. 8. In section 2.7, what is the meaning of chains and sample here? I think it should explain in more detail. Otherwise, the readers may confuse it with the survey sample (UK: 186, Japan: 346) 9. In section 4.1, the authors mentioned a significant difference between respondents from different countries. The finding of Japanese respondents is well-presented, but the finding of UK respondents is not found. Overall, this paper is of good quality, I recommended this paper with minor revision. Reviewer #2: Comment 1: Page 5, line 4-5. The introduction could be updated with newer references. What have been the injuries or fatalities trends in recent years? Comment 2: Table 1. The table should be structured clearer. Things are not described in the text should not be retained in the table, like “virtual reality” in column Type of study, what does that mean? I can only guess that is the methodology setting used in the study. Comment 3: Page 19, line 1-2. Is there any supplementary material that can support the usage of normal distribution? From my point of view, logistic regression is more used for binary selection and the transformation from utility to probability. You may need to provide or cite some materials to support your model selection. Comment 4: Page 19, Equation (4). What is HDri? Is it a typo? Comment 5: Page 21, line 15. The “same pattern” makes me confused. Do the responses have the same pattern in both country? Since the comparison after this sentence is between UK and Japan. But in UK, “save the most” was the mostly selected, and “save the pedestrians” is the most selected in Japan, which should not be defined as the same. Or it means the two preferences have the same response pattern in each country? You should clarify this. Comment 6: Fig 2. The quality of figures downloaded from the submission is poor and hard to see the words in the figure. The resolution of figures should meet the requirements of the publication, which is at a 300-600 ppi resolution, and not exceeding 10MB in size. Check all your figures other than just Fig 2. Comment 7: Page 27, section 4.1. Is it possible that the participants in Japan survey are mostly pedestrians without a car? Did you consider the vehicle ownership in the survey? Comment 8: The survey structure in the methodology, the data summary and model results proposed by the authors are relatively difficult to follow. Flowcharts or tables can be helpful to follow the process. ********** 6. 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 ********** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. 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Revision 1 |
Personal ethical settings for driverless cars and the utility paradox: an ethical analysis of public attitudes in UK and Japan PONE-D-22-20081R1 Dear Dr. Dominic Wilkinson, 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. Both reviewers has provied few additional comments. Please reflect these comments on your latest version of manuscript! 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Xiaoqiang ‘Jack’ Kong Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): There are a few comments provided by reviewers! Please address them before you submit the final version. 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 ********** 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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes 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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 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: Yes Reviewer #2: No ********** 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: The authors have properly addressed the concern, but there is some feedback in the following. 1. The authors provided the demographic information of the data. It seems there are slight differences between the UK and Japan in terms of gender and age distribution. Due to the convenience sampling, such a difference is tolerable. 2. The choice of logit and probit would nearly not influence the findings, but the former assumes the random variable obeys a logistic distribution, while the latter assumes that the random variable obeys normal distribution. Overall, I have no further comments for this paper. Reviewer #2: Comment #1 In the revised manuscript, there are some typos on page 5 between line 4 and 5. The "forward-collision waning" should be "forward-collision warning" and the "autonomous breaking system" should be "autonomous braking system". Comment #2 Page 19, line 1 and line 18. The meaning of "Occ" and "Ped" in both two lines is not clear. Italics are mostly used to indicate variables, and the use of different font styles conveys different meanings, which the author needs to clarify. ********** 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 ********** |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-22-20081R1 Personal ethical settings for driverless cars and the utility paradox: an ethical analysis of public attitudes in UK and Japan Dear Dr. Wilkinson: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Xiaoqiang ‘Jack’ Kong Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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