PONE-D-24-18829Study on ring-road incident duration based on latent class accelerated hazard modelPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Li,

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Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

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 manuscript explores factors that potentially influence the incident duration of a unique freeway in China (ring-road). Incident duration is critical for freeway emergency management. Overall, this paper comprehensively considers various influencing factors and captures the effects of potential heterogeneity. My feedback on the study is as follows:

The introduction of the article summarizes the contributions made in the field of incident duration research in the past. However, some recent studies on freeway safety could add value to the analysis of incidents.

How are the characteristic classifications of each variable in Table 1 obtained? If they are extracted from other articles, proper references should be provided.

Line 140: What is the purpose of the Spearman correlation test? What does an absolute correlation coefficient of less than 0.7 indicate? This should be explained in the text.

The conclusion of the manuscript is too extensive and repeats the content of the discussion. A brief overview of the manuscript's content and its contributions would suffice.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript proposes a latent class survival model to analyze the freeway incident duration. The topic is interesting and the manuscript is easy to follow. I have some questions/comments about the paper are as follows:

1. L27-28: Semantic relationship of some sentences in the abstract could not be established, there may be some grammar errors. Careful sentence review is very important.

2. L125: The fonts and lines provided in Figure 1 do not seem to be rigorous enough. Please review them carefully.

3. As a special freeway, the ring-road has some differences from the general freeway, which need to be explained. In addition, the existing research in the field is based on the freeway, and whether there will be significant changes in the research methods for the ring-road is worth further exploration.

4. The meaning of the Data section seems to be unclear. What is the purpose of describing the proportion of each type of incident? Does it relate to the main point or innovation of the article?

5. L156-157: There are problems with the format of the manuscript. It is very necessary to check the language and format in the manuscript. Please be more rigorous about the manuscript.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Study on ring-road incident duration based on latent class accelerated hazard model

PONE-D-24-18829R1

Dear Dr. Li,

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,

Zhihong (Arry) Yao, Ph.D.

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 #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 #2: Yes

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

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 #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 #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 #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 #2: No

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