-->PONE-D-25-63432-->-->Research on Passenger-Train Coordination and Passenger Flow Evolution in Urban Rail Transit Systems under Degraded Operations-->-->PLOS One

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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: No

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: In the paper, the authors aim to investigate passenger flow evolution and dynamic route choice behaviors in urban rail transit systems under degraded operations. The proposed framework combines path identification, bounded rational route choice modeling, and passenger flow propagation simulation. It contributes to the understanding of how operational disruptions affect network-wide passenger dynamics. The case study based on Hangzhou Metro data provides useful empirical evidence. However, several aspects of the paper require further clarification and improvement. The following concerns should be addressed:

1. The paper concludes that "passenger route choice under degraded operations exhibits bounded rationality," which is not sufficiently supported by the presented results. The bounded rationality assumption is introduced at the modeling stage, and the subsequent calibration and simulation validate the performance of the model rather than the bounded rationality hypothesis itself.

2. The paper assumes bounded rationality in passenger route choice and calibrates several behavioral parameters; however, the calibration process and data sources for many key parameters are not clearly explained.

3. Many of the behavioral parameters in the model are presented only as ranges, and the paper does not specify how these ranges are mapped to individual passengers (such as parameter distributions like normal, lognormal, or empirical distributions). Also, the model explicitly incorporates passenger heterogeneity, while it is unclear in the model and formula.

4. The route identification is based on Eq. (4) is not accurate. The formula of W_{min} is incomplete. Please check all the formulas.

5. The original formula W\left(P_q\right)=\sum_{e_{ij}\in E} t_{e_{ij}}+\alpha\cdot t_{P_q}^{walk}+\beta\cdot\delta_{P_q}^{trans} is ambiguous. The summation range e_{ij}\in E may mislead readers to sum up the travel time of all links in the network, but it should actually refer to only the links included in path P_q.

6. There are also several issues with the figures. The authors should revise the figures.

(1) Figure 3 does not clearly indicate the location or timing of passenger exit swiping, which is essential for understanding the path identification process.

(2) The legend "passenger path reselection rate" appears multiple times in the same figure.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript investigates the dynamics of passenger flow and the coordination between trains and passengers in Urban Rail Transit (URT) systems during degraded operations. The authors propose an integrated simulation framework featuring a Bounded Rationality (BR) route choice model. The study is relevant and well-aligned with the scope of PLOS ONE. However, several technical aspects regarding model validation and parameter justification require clarification.

Major Comments

1.The Bounded Rationality (BR) model relies heavily on the "rationality threshold" and weights assigned to decision dimensions (time value, transfer burden, etc.). It is unclear how these specific coefficients were determined. The authors should explicitly state whether these were calibrated using empirical data or adopted from literature. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis on the BR threshold is necessary to demonstrate the robustness of the model.

2. While the simulation results are logically sound, there is a lack of quantitative comparison with real-world observations.

3.The simulation focuses on specific segments. In a real URT network, degraded operations on one line often trigger re-routing to parallel lines. Please clarify if the model considers network-wide path re-selection. If limited to a single-line analysis, the limitations regarding network-level spillover effects should be discussed.

Minor Comments

1.Figures 8(a) and 8(b) are quite dense. Labels for the X-axis and legends are small and difficult to read. I suggest increasing the font size and ensuring high-resolution formats.

2.The term "Propagation Intensity" should be explained more intuitively. What does an intensity of "0.8" represent in terms of practical operational risk?

3. While generally clear, some sentences are overly long.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Research on Passenger-Train Coordination and Passenger Flow Evolution in Urban Rail Transit Systems under Degraded Operations

PONE-D-25-63432R1

Dear Dr. Jing Zuo,

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,

Songpo Yang

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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-->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: No

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 #1: Yes

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 #1: The authors have addressed all my comments. If possible, please increase the resolution of the figures, or replace them with vector graphics.

Reviewer #2: I have no competing interests. After carefully rereading the revised manuscript, I think the authors have addressed all my comments appropriately and sufficiently. The quality of the manuscript has been significantly improved, and I recommend accepting the paper for publication.

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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 #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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