Shared bikes distribution vehicle routing problem with split delivery considering carbon emission

Guanghui Chen; Huicong Li; Bing Su; Qinge Guo; Hao Ji

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0333781

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 21, 2025
7 Jul 2025 Decision Letter - Manuel Herrador, Editor -->PONE-D-25-24555-->-->Shared Bike Distribution Vehicle Routing Problem with Split Delivery Considering Carbon Emission-->-->PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chen, 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. Dear Author, The reviewers have recommended major revisions for your manuscript. Please address the comments and suggestions provided by the reviewers thoroughly in your revision. We believe that these changes will significantly improve the quality and impact of your work. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Best regards Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 21 2025 11:59PM. 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Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [This work was supported in part by the National Nature Science Foundation of China under Grant 52302443, and in part by the Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province under Grant 2023R059.]. 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."" If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Author, The reviewers have recommended major revisions for your manuscript. Please address the comments and suggestions provided by the reviewers thoroughly in your revision. We believe that these changes will significantly improve the quality and impact of your work. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Best regards [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: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ******** -->2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? --> Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** -->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: The manuscript addresses an important and timely topic: the optimization of shared bike distribution vehicle routing under split delivery constraints while considering carbon emissions. The problem is relevant for sustainable urban logistics and aligns with current efforts to reduce the environmental impact of transportation. The proposed model and approximation algorithm (GA) are well-structured, and the empirical validation provides a strong application to real-world scenarios. However, there are several critical areas where the manuscript requires improvement before it can be considered for publication. 1. While the manuscript provides an extensive list of references, the literature review lacks critical synthesis. The discussion on the gaps in existing research is vague and does not clearly articulate how this work advances the field. Please compare the proposed model and algorithm to existing models/algorithms for split delivery vehicle routing. 2. Please discuss how the carbon emission considerations in this study differ from prior studies. 3. The description of the approximation algorithm (GA) is difficult to follow. The steps of the algorithm are not sufficiently detailed for replication. Please provide a pseudocode or flowchart for the GA algorithm. 4. Please justify why this specific algorithm was chosen over other heuristic or metaheuristic approaches (e.g., tabu search, particle swarm optimization). 5. Please elaborate on the parameter settings for the GA and their impact on the results. 6. Please discuss the source of the data (e.g., bike demand, vehicle characteristics) and any assumptions made during data collection and analysis. 7. Please include a visual representation of the vehicle routes (e.g., maps or diagrams) to make the results more intuitive. 8. The calculation of carbon emission costs is not sufficiently detailed. It is unclear how these costs are derived and whether they are based on real-world data or assumptions. Please provide more information about the methodology used to estimate carbon emissions per unit of distance/load. 9. The discussion of limitations is superficial. The authors should address the assumption of sufficient delivery vehicles may not hold in real-world scenarios. Discuss how the model would perform under vehicle shortages. Reviewer #2: The paper aims to establish model of multiple types distribution vehicle route selection in shared bike of considering carbon emission. I have some major comments. 1. This paper is indeed working on the topic of relocation/repositioning of shared bikes. There is a large body of similar works in this topic. What is the major contribution of this study. Simply consider the carbon emission? 2. This work simply focuses on the operator-based relocation of shared bikes. However, user based relocation is also proposed in the literature to incentivize users to help do the relocation, which do not involve any carbon emission. One paper that you can refer to is entitled with "A dynamic pricing scheme with negative prices in dockless bike sharing systems" published on Transportation Research Part B. 3. The literature review of this study is NOT comprehensive. Many related works on the topic of bike sharing system are not mentioned and well reviewed. Some papers with the following titles are to be included in the literature review: "A data-driven dynamic repositioning model in bicycle-sharing systems", "Allocation strategies in a dockless bike sharing system: a community structure-based approach", "Optimal bike allocations in a competitive bike sharing market"; "Research on rebalancing of large-scale bike-sharing system driven by zonal heterogeneity and demand uncertainty". 4. The English language of this paper manuscript needs to be further polished and refined. There are many errors and language problems in this manuscript. ****** -->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. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. 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Revision 1
8 Sep 2025 Author Response Journal requirements: 2. Please note that PLOS ONE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, we expect all author-generated code to be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/materials-and- software- sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [This work was supported in part by the National Nature Science Foundation of China under Grant 52302443, and in part by the Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province under Grant 2023R059.]. 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."" If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have revised this statement. The revised content is as follows: This work was supported in part by the Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province under Grant S2023R059; 2025JC-YBMS-809.The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: The manuscript addresses an important and timely topic: the optimization of shared bike distribution vehicle routing under split delivery constraints while considering carbon emissions. The problem is relevant for sustainable urban logistics and aligns with current efforts to reduce the environmental impact of transportation. The proposed model and approximation algorithm (GA) are well-structured, and the empirical validation provides a strong application to real-world scenarios. However, there are several critical areas where the manuscript requires improvement before it can be considered for publication. Author response: Thank you! 1.While the manuscript provides an extensive list of references, the literature review lacks critical synthesis. The discussion on the gaps in existing research is vague and does not clearly articulate how this work advances the field. Please compare the proposed model and algorithm to existing models/algorithms for split delivery vehicle routing. Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have revised the literature review by removing some identical studies on split vehicle routing problems and adding references related to bike-sharing delivery, with clarifications the differences between this work and existing literature. Please see line 96-103 in the revised manuscript. Please discuss how the carbon emission considerations in this study differ from prior studies. Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. We think this study focuses on the operator-based distribution vehicle routing of shared bikes, considering the significant demand variations across different stations, transforms the distribution vehicle routing of shared bikes problem into a Split Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem (SDVRP). However, a literature review reveals that most existing research on SDVRP focuses on minimizing costs, maximizing profits, or reducing the number of vehicles, while only a few studies incorporate carbon emissions into the objective function. Therefore, this paper takes this gap as a key research and conducts an in-depth investigation, and established the model with the minimization of both carbon emission cost and delivery cost as the objective functionin in the study, while introducing parameter δ to quantify carbon emission reductions when shared bicycles are used instead of other transport modes under equivalent conditions. We have added the content to the manuscript on line 113-119 in the revised manuscript. 3.The description of the approximation algorithm (GA) is difficult to follow. The steps of the algorithm are not sufficiently detailed for replication. Please provide a pseudocode or flowchart for the GA algorithm. Author response: We think this is an excellent suggestion. We have added the suggested pseudocode to the manuscript on TABLE 1. Pseudocode of the approximation algorithm GA. 4.Please justify why this specific algorithm was chosen over other heuristic or metaheuristic approaches (e.g., tabu search, particle swarm optimization). Author response: We have added the suggested content to the manuscript on line 185-197 in the revised manuscript. 5.Please elaborate on the parameter settings for the GA and their impact on the results. Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have added the suggested content to the manuscript on 5.2 Sensitivity Analysis. 6. Please discuss the source of the data (e.g., bike demand, vehicle characteristics) and any assumptions made during data collection and analysis. Author response: We have added the suggested content to the manuscript on line 312-336 and REFERENCES 30-36 in the revised manuscript. 7.Please include a visual representation of the vehicle routes (e.g., maps or diagrams) to make the results more intuitive. Author response: We have added the suggested content as FIGURE 2 in the revised manuscript. 8.The calculation of carbon emission costs is not sufficiently detailed. It is unclear how these costs are derived and whether they are based on or assumptions. Please provide more information about the methodology used to estimate carbon emissions per unit of distance/load. Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have added the suggested content to the manuscript on line 312-336 and REFERENCES 30-36 in the revised manuscript. The calculation of carbon emission cost is primarily based on real-world data, and follows a three-tiered methodology, First, the emission factor of electric of Foton Tuanao X5 is derived from empirical data, which then yields the per-unit-distance/per-unit-load carbon emission rate. Subsequently, carbon cost are obtained by applying jurisdictional carbon pricing schemes. 9.The discussion of limitations is superficial. The authors should address the assumption of sufficient delivery vehicles may not hold in real-world scenarios. Discuss how the model would perform under vehicle shortages. Author response: We agree that this is a potential limitation of the study. We have added this as a limitation on line 428 in the revised manuscript. Our next study will specifically address the distribution vehicle routing of shared bikes under limited vehicle availability. Reviewer #2: The paper aims to establish model of multiple types distribution vehicle route selection in shared bike of considering carbon emission. I have some major comments. 1. This paper is indeed working on the topic of relocation/repositioning of shared bikes. There is a large body of similar works in this topic. What is the major contribution of this study. Simply consider the carbon emission? Author response: We appreciate the reviewer's feedback, we respectfully disagree. We think this paper focuses on the operator-based distribution vehicle routing of shared bikes, considering the significant demand variations across different stations, transforms the distribution vehicle routing of shared bikes problem into a Split Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem (SDVRP). However, a literature review reveals that most existing research on SDVRP focuses on minimizing costs, maximizing profits, or reducing the number of vehicles, while only a few studies incorporate carbon emissions into the objective function. Therefore, this paper took this gap as a key research and conducts an in-depth investigation, and established the model with the minimization of both carbon emission cost and delivery cost as the objective function in the study, while introducing parameter δ to quantify carbon emission reductions when shared bicycles are used instead of other transport modes under equivalent conditions. We have added the content to the manuscript on line 113-119 in the revised manuscript. 2. This work simply focuses on the operator-based relocation of shared bikes. However, user based relocation is also proposed in the literature to incentivize users to help do the relocation, which do not involve any carbon emission. One paper that you can refer to is entitled with "A dynamic pricing scheme with negative prices in dockless bike sharing systems" published on Transportation Research Part B. Author response: Thank you for this suggestion. After thoroughly studying the literature cited by the reviewer, we found it very inspiring and believes it would have been interesting to explore this aspect. However, in our study, this would not be possible because that our work only focused on distribution vehicle routing of shared bikes and users participation in the redistribution of shared bikes was not taken into consideration. 3. The literature review of this study is NOT comprehensive. Many related works on the topic of bike sharing system are not mentioned and well reviewed. Some papers with the following titles are to be included in the literature review: "A data-driven dynamic repositioning model in bicycle-sharing systems", "Allocation strategies in a dockless bike sharing system: a community structure-based approach", "Optimal bike allocations in a competitive bike sharing market"; "Research on rebalancing of large-scale bike-sharing system driven by zonal heterogeneity and demand uncertainty". Author response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have studied the literature recommended by the reviewers and supplemented the literature review accordingly, Please see line 96-103 in the revised manuscript. 4. The English language of this paper manuscript needs to be further polished and refined. There are many errors and language problems in this manuscript. Author response: We agree with the reviewer's assessment. we have revised spelling and grammatical mistake in the revised manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.doc https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0333781.r002
18 Sep 2025 Decision Letter - Manuel Herrador, Editor Shared Bike Distribution Vehicle Routing Problem with Split Delivery Considering Carbon Emission PONE-D-25-24555R1 Dear Dr. Chen, 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. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. 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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: 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 for your revision. No further suggestions from me. The current version can be acceptable. Reviewer #2: My comments have been addressed. I recommend to accept this paper manuscript for publication consideration in this journal. ****** -->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 ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0333781.r003
Formally Accepted
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