PONE-D-24-14676Variance in odds ratios for estimating the deterrent effect of darkness on cycling: Variation due to the choice of case and control hoursPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yesiltepe,

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.

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• Results are not clear. I would only appreciate to read a detailed statistical approach

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• Add the public implications of this study.

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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"This work was conducted within SATURN (Supporting Active Travel Using Road-lighting at Night), funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/V043587/1)."

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" 

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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

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

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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: Thank you to the editor and the authors for the opportunity to review this paper entitled “Variance in odds ratios for estimating the deterrent effect of darkness on cycling: Variation due to the choice of case and control hours. This study investigated the impact of the choice of case and control hours on ORs obtained for cyclist flows in different countries.

The idea of this paper is interesting, and it seems to be important to help the knowledge of the area. Thus, below are some points that, in my opinion, would help the authors increase the quality of the study.

ABSTRACT

In line 17 is the first moment the word “odds ratios” appears, but there is no acronym description, OR, however, in line 20, the acronym ORs appears. So, please, insert the acronym in the first description of the odds ratios.

Additionally, it would be important, that the authors insert the “p values” in the abstract, rather than only describe “…the variance was larger… (line 21)”, or “…this suggested a statistically significant deterrent… (line 25)”.

INTRODUCTION

I suggest the authors remove or reorder (ex. supplementary document or only citing the study) both tables 1 and 2 from the introduction. The way they were inserted affects the fluidity of reading.

METHODS

Line 175. There is a double “that” written.

Why did the authors use eight years in the new locations rather than four years? And, why choose different years? Could these differences in the years impair the analysis?

DISCUSSION

Why were the formulas inserted in the discussion?

The discussion highlights the study's important findings, pertinent conclusions, and their implications or applications. So, it would be better to transfer the formulas for the Method session.

While in the introduction, the authors talk about the influence of the weather on the flow of cyclists, in the discussion, the topic is not presented. I think that the authors would invest in this topic.

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Reviewer #1: No

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PONE-D-24-14676R1Variance in odds ratios for estimating the deterrent effect of darkness on cycling: Variation due to the choice of case and control hoursPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yesiltepe,

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.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR: Congratulations, the article is close to the acceptance.

Please, addresses the recommnedation raised by the reviewer on item 7 (regarding the equations cited in the discussion). Please, remove the equations to "methods section" if they were used in the study's procedures or to a more suitable place (tables or supplementary material if applicable).

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 01 2024 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:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Flávio Oliveira Pires, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear authors,

Congratulations, the article is close to the acceptance.

Please, addresses the recommnedation raised by the reviewer on item 7 (regarding the equations cited in the discussion). Please, remove the equations to "methods section" if they were used in the study's procedures or to a more suitable place (tables or supplementary material if applicable).

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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

********** 

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

********** 

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

Reviewer #1: 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

********** 

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

********** 

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: Thank you to the editor and the authors for the opportunity to review again this paper entitled “Variance in odds ratios for estimating the deterrent effect of darkness on cycling: Variation

due to the choice of case and control hours.

The authors clarified all issues and made the changes to the manuscript when was relevant.

********** 

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

**********

[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. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Variance in odds ratios for estimating the deterrent effect of darkness on cycling: Variation due to the choice of case and control hours

PONE-D-24-14676R2

Dear Dr. Yesiltepe,

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,

Flávio Oliveira Pires, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: