PONE-D-24-31325Influence of Road Environmental Factors on Traffic Accidents Involving Vulnerable Road Users through Negative Binomial ModelsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr.Tian,

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Ahmed Mancy Mosa, 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

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Partly

Reviewer #5: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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: The abstract needs to include a few noteworthy findings.

The study is limited to the province of Hunan in China. In what ways, in your opinion, does the geographic focus impact the application of your findings to other regions or countries?

This study utilized traffic accident data collected by the Hunan Provincial Public Security Department in China, covering the 3-year period from 2014 to 2016. In my opinion, the data on this topic is unhelpful because it is outdated. What are the advantages of using it? but Figure 1 shows up to 2021??

The figures have a very low resolution.

Given the age-specific findings, what targeted strategies would you recommend for improving the safety of vulnerable populations like children and the elderly?

How do your findings compare to similar studies conducted in other regions or countries? Are there any significant similarities or differences that you would like to highlight?

Limitations and Future Research. Does this have to be in your article? It's common knowledge that no study can account for every factor.

Reviewer #2: 1. The abstract need more clear about the main finding and conclusions of the research.

2. need to arrange all figures and tables.

3. The study area map needs to add the north arrow and coordination if available. And important to add the legend to define the location of accidents.

4. The regression model developed need validation or verification with field data.

5. What are the main recommendation that the author can advise for alleviate the accidents and reduce risk to pedestrian through utilizing transportation system in general.

6. All figure are not clear

7. All tables are not clear

Reviewer #3: After extensive review of the research submitted for the purpose of evaluation, it was concluded that the research is very good in terms of choosing the topic and the mechanism of presentation and submission, and it can be accepted without fundamental modifications. The evaluator received comments and a simple inquiry, as shown.

1. Since the different safety effects of the various user groups were found, has the effect of the nature of pedestrians been studied in terms of the nature of physical activity and structure of the city referred to, and the extent to which this affects the analysis. The study city is considered one of the active locations in terms of business and the nature of its population.

2. Possibility of adding more keywords.

3. The installed figures are not clear. Please install the figures in higher resolution as in figure 1.

Reviewer #4: This paper studied the influence of road environmental factors on traffic accidents, which can provide reference to the pedestrian safety in the transportation system design. However, some problems need to be addressed. My comments are provided below.

1. The author selected traffic accident data collected by the Hunan Provincial Public Security Department in China from 2014 to 2016. The data seems out of date, and the author needs to add data from recent years (2017-2024) to derive more reliable results.

2. Did the author only consider collisions? What about other accidents, such as fire, explosion, scraping and rolling etc.?

3. The resolution of the figures is too low, and it is difficult for me to understand them. The author is encouraged to provide vectograph.

4. The language of this manuscript needs to be polished by a native speaker.

5. The application value of the article should be more prominent in the Abstract part.

Reviewer #5: Recommendation: major revisions

Comments:

This paper mainly discusses the impact of road environment factors on traffic accidents involving vulnerable road users (children and the elderly). Through the analysis of traffic accident data from Hunan Province, the study uses a negative binomial regression model and a zero-truncated negative binomial model (ZTNB) to assess the effects of factors such as road functional classification, intersection design, traffic control, and isolation facilities on the frequency of accidents. However, there are still some issues:

1.In fact, there are many derived models of negative binomial models, but there are few methods and models in the introduction, especially for the application and advantages of ZTNB model, the description is insufficient.

2.This research is based on traffic accident data from Hunan Province from 2014 to 2016, which covers a limited time span. The authors are advised to discuss whether this time period is generally representative, and to conduct a certain restrictive discussion on the generalizability of the research results.

3.It is suggested that the authors provide a more detailed explanation of the selection of road environment variables, particularly explaining why certain variables were included in the analysis while other potentially important factors (e.g., weather conditions, time factors) were not considered, to ensure the comprehensiveness of the research results.

4.It is recommended to further strengthen the policy recommendations in the conclusion section, clearly specifying which road environment improvement measures are most likely to effectively reduce traffic accidents, and providing specific implementation paths. This will offer more actionable advice for policymakers and urban planners.

5.In the fourth paragraph of Section 5.3.1, there are repeated statements regarding the quantity of each sample.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dr. Zainab Ahmed Alkaissi

Reviewer #3: Yes: Asst.Prof. Dr. Rana Amir Yousif

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-31325.pdf

PONE-D-24-31325R1Influence of Road Environmental Factors on Traffic Accidents Involving Vulnerable Road Users through Negative Binomial ModelsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tian,

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 Jan 25 2025 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,

Nik Hisamuddin Nik Ab. Rahman

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments :

Major revision

[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 #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: 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

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: 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 #2: Need to add only limitation for the work more clearly, And all the required notes has been done

Also, And All the questions has been clarified

Reviewer #3: After extensive review of the research with the symbol ModelsPONE-D-24-31325R1and tagged Influence of Road Environmental Factors on Traffic Accidents Involving Vulnerable Road Users through Negative Binomial, the following was reached:

The reviewer recommends accepting the aforementioned research after observing the following:

1. The researcher made all the modifications required by him and determined by the four evaluators.

2. The researcher answered most of the research inquiries directed by reviewers.

3. Although the study period was proposed, which is the years 2014 to 2016, and although the years are not specific, the analysis was done in good ways and the study can be used for good future research.

With respect.

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: The reviewer recommends acceptance for publication.

The author has responded to the reviewers' comments and made corresponding revisions according to their suggestions. There are no further issues.

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes: Asst.Prof.Dr.Rana Amir Yousif

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

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[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: reviewer decision.pdf

Influence of Road Environmental Factors on Traffic Accidents Involving Vulnerable Road Users through Negative Binomial Models

PONE-D-24-31325R2

Dear Dr. Tian,

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,

Nik Hisamuddin Nik Ab. Rahman

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Accepted as all the corrections are carried out