Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

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Journal of Transport Geography

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Assessing intercity multimodal choice behavior in a Touristy City: A factor T

analysis
Xiaowei Lia, , Junqing Tangb, Xiaojiao Hua, Wei Wangc
⁎

a
School of Civil Engineering, Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology, Xi'an 710055, China
b
Centre of Smart Infrastructure and Construction, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
c
School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This paper investigates influential factors in passengers' intercity multimodal choice behaviors in a touristy city.
Multimodal choice By collecting large individual-level data through a comprehensive field survey that was carried out at the major
Bayesian logistic regression transportation hubs in Xi'an, China, we studied four travel modes of the surveyed travelers in this touristy city,
Intercity travel including air, high-speed rail, traditional passenger train, and express bus. For factor analysis, 12 variables,
Choice behavior
including not only individual-related attributes but also ticketing methods and mental perceptions, were used as
Factor analysis
the independent factors after the correlation analysis and collinearity test. The regression relationships between
the travel mode choice and the independent variables were studied using Bayesian multinomial logistic re-
gression. The results indicate that those 12 factors have significant and various influences on passengers' mode
choices. In particular, travel distance, fare rate, intercity travel time per hundred kilometers, quality of service,
accessibility of transportation hubs, and ticketing methods have influential contributions for explaining the
choice decision-makings. The findings demystify the effects of several unexplored factors in intercity multimodal
travel choice behaviors and shed new light on formulating traffic management strategies for service providers
and decision-makers in practice.

1. Introduction efficiently and how much regional space is devoted to transportation

The maturity level of the high-speed railway (HSR) and air travel is
an important indicator of a country's modernization and prosperity and
has greatly improved the people's travel efficiency, especially in de-
veloping countries such as China. At present, the country has the
world's longest HSR network and an ever-growing portion in the air
transportation sector (Börjesson, 2014; Li and Sheng, 2016). According
to China's thirteenth five-year national plan for economic and social
development, the HSR network in China will reach about 30,000 km in
length. Furthermore, there will be more than 50 new-built civil airports
in the next five years, which will cultivate the intercity connections for
multiplex infrastructure systems and improve the efficiency of multi-
modal travel in the country.
In order to develop a socially desirable and environmentally sus-
tainable transport system that is in line with the travel demands,
transportation planners and managers need to improve their under-
standing of the hierarchy of individual and contextual variables that
influence people's travel mode choice. The understanding of intercity
multimodal choice is important as it affects how people can travel
functions (Cheng et al., 2019). In this connection, it is of significant
value to explore the variety of different transportation modes in mar-
kets, especially after the introduction of the HSR, and reveal the factors
that influence people's multimode choice in their travel behaviors.
Additionally, it is also valuable for service providers to develop ap-
propriate marketing strategies.
Currently, most of the previous studies related to intercity travel
mode choice have focused on the behavior analysis of the air travel and
the HSR from perspectives of individual attributes (Abasahl et al., 2018;
Meena et al., 2019), accessibility to terminals (Román et al., 2014;
Martín et al., 2014), and energy consumptions (D'Alfonso et al., 2016).
For example, Behrens and Pels (2012) reported that the HSR running at
a speed of 250 km/h or higher is considered competitive for trips be-
tween 160 and 800 km in London–Paris passenger market, whereas the
air travel is preferable for a longer distance. Martín et al. (2014) ana-
lyzed the effect of access and egress time to transport terminals over the
spatial competitiveness between HSR and air travels in the Ma-
drid–Barcelona (Spain) corridor. The results indicated that improving
terminal accessibility via private cars or public transits not only affects

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lixiaowei@xauat.edu.cn (X. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102776
Received 4 November 2019; Received in revised form 7 June 2020; Accepted 15 June 2020
0966-6923/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Li, et al.
the relative access to terminals but also represents a key strategy for re-
adjusting the market shares of the competing modes in the corridor.
D'Alfonso et al. (2016) revealed that competition between these two
modes may be detrimental to the environment, depending on the
market expansion, modal shift, market size, and relative level of being
environmentally-friendly of HSR services when comparing with air
transportation.
The foundation of the travel mode choice decision is the discrete
choice analysis (Dow and Endersby, 2004; Train, 2009). This analysis is
based on the economic theory of stochastic utility, which assumes that a
traveler chooses the most efficient travel mode (Train, 2009). Due to
the introduction of discrete choice analysis in solving transportation-
related problems, it has been applied to various fields (Commins and
Nolan, 2011). The foci of these studies were concentrated on analyzing
behaviors associated with decision-making processes, such as mode
choice (Bhat, 2000; Ewing et al., 2004; Dissanayake and Morikawa,
2005; Habib, 2012), vehicle choice (Choo and Mokhtarian, 2004), and
choice of destination (Nicolau and Más, 2006). The most widely used
models are still based on the utility theory of the discrete choice, such
as logit and probit (Li et al., 2015), which often use maximum like-
lihood estimation as a parameter estimation method. With the devel-
opment of discrete choice modeling techniques and simulation algo-
rithms, Bayesian parameter estimation methods have been widely
developed and applied in the field of transport studies (Sun et al., 2017;
Yang et al., 2018; Guo et al. (2018a)). Previous studies have shown that
a Bayesian approach can better integrate the implicit sample informa-
tion, obtain the parameter estimation with good statistical perfor-
mance, and improve the model estimation efficiency (Yang and Sung,
2010; Zhang et al., 2019; Afghari et al., 2019).
However, the choice behavior analysis of intercity multimodal
transportation consisting of the airplane, HSR, traditional passenger
train, and express bus was relatively underdeveloped. Because these
studies focused on certain corridors consisting of a pair of origin and
destination, some important factors, such as travel distance, were
overlooked. Apart from those mentioned traditional attributes, the
widespread application of China's mobile payments has emerged with
fast payment methods such as Taobao, Wechat, and Union-pay (Cheng
and Huang, 2014). Nowadays, it is very easy for passengers to get
tickets through a booking system with mobile devices in China. Thus, it
is of interest to discuss whether the ticketing method affects the travel
mode choice of passengers, which could be of great significance for
improving the ticket service systems of transportation enterprises. In
addition, a large number of studies have explored the choice of intercity
passenger travel modes in the United States of America (Dobruszkes
et al., 2014), Europe (Van Exel and Rietveld, 2009; Pellegrini and
Rodriguez, 2013; Paha et al., 2013; Börjesson, 2014; Mancuso, 2014),
Japan (Yao and Morikawa, 2005), Vietnam (Can, 2013), Taiwan, China
(Hsu et al., 2005; Wen et al., 2012; Cheng and Huang, 2014), and Brazil
(Freitas, 2013; Scarpel, 2014). The studies about touristy mainland
Chinese cities, however, have been relatively limited in the literature.
Lastly, Bayesian estimation has not been applied in the field of pas-
senger travel mode choice and its prediction strength has not been in-
vestigated in such context.
To bridge the mentioned gaps, a Bayesian multinomial logit (BMNL)
model was applied to examine how the characteristics of the passengers'
travel attributes and other service attributes affect their mode choice
behaviors in this study. The purpose is to explore the influential factors
and focus on the domestic passengers who choose Xi'an, a touristy
Chinese city, as either their origin or destination in their travels. The
passengers referred here are people traveling from/to Xi'an with a
variety of travel purposes, including holiday vacation, visiting friends
and relatives, holiday leave taken in conjunction with a business trip
(mandatory travels), and other forms of travel activities. Because this
survey was conducted in March, it also included some students re-
turning to their universities after a holiday. The data were collected
from 1400 passengers. The effective sample size was 1231 (88% of the
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Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776
total sample). The correlation analysis was used to initially screen the
related variables extracted from the data, and a collinearity test on the
variables was conducted as well to select representative factors as the
independent variables. Finally, the receiver operating characteristic
(ROC) curve and accuracy measures were used to evaluate the validity
of the Bayesian logistic model.
The main contributions of this paper can be summarized as follows:
(1) The factor analysis in this investigation includes not only the in-
dividual attribute characteristic, but also the traveler's ticketing
methods and the characteristics of travel demand, accessibility,
intercity travel, and subjective perceptions, which sheds light on
identifying new factors.
(2) The application of BMNL in the multimodal choice behavior of
passengers is investigated, which bridges an application gap of the
assessment toolkit.
(3) The study provides a new case study of a touristy city in China,
which would benefit the community and contribute to the body of
knowledge by providing an up-to-date empirical understanding of
travel decision behaviors. Potentially, the approach we demon-
strated in this study could be recommended to other similar cities.
2. Methodology
We adopted the Bayesian-based model, which is advocated in model
estimation for their high accuracy (Guo et al. (2018a)). Compared with
the traditional likelihood-based discrete choice model, the Bayesian
method takes the parameters as random variables and provides the
complete uncertainty of the parameters through the posterior dis-
tribution (Zhang et al., 2019; Afghari et al., 2019). Besides, traditional
perspectives on training a logit model such as multinomial logit cannot
realize the combination of training data with prior domain knowledge
(Madigan et al., 2005). Also, the Bayesian method can avoid the nu-
merically cumbersome likelihood function maximizations (Huber and
Train, 2001; Xu et al., 2015) and over-fitting problems (Lee et al., 2003)
to improve prediction accuracy.
2.1. BMNL model
Discrete outcomes were utilized as the dependent variables to re-
present mode choices. For Bayesian-based discrete choice models, the
Bayesian Binomial Logit (BBL) model is widely known for modeling two
discrete choices. The BMNL model is an extension of the BBL model,
which is used for more than two discrete choices of dependent variables
(Bhat and Srinivasan, 2005). These choices are coded categorically with
one of the categories being used as a reference category (Cirillo et al.,
2018). Mathematically, the BMNL model can be written as (Guo et al.
(2018a)):
exp ( 0j + 1j x1i + 2j x2i + + kj xki )
P (Yi = j ) = J
m=1
exp ( 0m + 1m x1i + 2m x2i + + km xki ) (1)
where Yi = j represents the passenger i’s choice of travel mode j, xki
indicates the value of the variable k for the sample i, αkj is the coeffi-
cient of the variable k for the mode j, and the likelihood function of the
BMNL model can be expressed as:
f (Y | ) =
N J
[ × P (Yi = j )]
ij
i=1 j=1
N J
= i=1 j=1
exp ( 0j + 1j x1i + 2j x2i + + kj xki )
×
ij J
exp ( 0m + 1m x1i + 2m x2i + + km xki )
m =1 (2)
T
where α = [α0m, α1m, α2m, ⋯, αkm ] is the parameter vector, J is the
travel mode set, δij is defined as being equal to 1 if the observed discrete
outcome for passenger i is j, and it is zero otherwise.
X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

A Bayesian inference approach based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo Table 1

(MCMC) method can be applied to simulate the posterior distribution of The four-classes confusion matrix.
α. The estimates of the mean, standard deviation, and quartiles of the Travel mode Predicted class
parameters of each explanatory variable can be determined by the
posterior distribution provided by the Bayesian approach (Guo et al. Mode 1 Mode 2 Mode 3 Mode 4
(2018b)). Based on the specification of the Bayes theorem, the posterior
Actual class Mode 1 R11 R12 R13 R14
distribution of parameters can be estimated using the following func- Mode 2 R21 R22 R23 R24
tion: Mode 3 R31 R32 R33 R34
Mode 4 R41 R42 R43 R44
f (Y , ) f (Y | ) ( )
f ( | Y) = = f (Y | ) ( )
f (Y ) f (Y | ) ( ) d (3)
Besides, the four-classes confusion matrix of the model can also be
where f(α| Y) denotes the posterior joint distribution of parameters α
transformed into four binary confusion matrices. For example, for Mode
conditional on dataset Y. f(Y, α) represents the joint probability dis-
1, its binary confusion matrix can be represented as shown in Table 2.
tribution of dataset Y and model parameters α. f(Y| α) is the likelihood
The recall of Mode 1 can be calculated based on this binary confusion
conditional function based on parameters α, specified by the Eq. (2).
matrix, which represents the proportion of positive samples that were
Function π(α) is the prior distribution of parameters α. Due to the lack
correctly classified to the total number of positive predicted samples as
of information of the random parameters, the following non-in-
indicated in Eq. (7). The precision of Mode 1 represents the proportion
formative prior distributions for parameter α were used:
of positive samples that were correctly classified to the total number of
~N (0k , 106Ik ) (4) positive predicted samples as calculated using Eq. (8). The recall and
precision of other modes can be calculated in a similar way.
where 0k is a vector of zeros and Ik represents the k × k identity ma-
trices. R11 + R22 + R33 + R 44
Accuracy =
Based on the specification of the prior distributions for parameters R (6)
α, the posterior joint distribution f(α| Y) can be derived as:
R11
RecallMode 1 =
f ( | Y) f (Y | ) ( ) R11 + R12 + R13 + R14 (7)
N J exp ( 0j + 1j x1i + 2j x2i + + kj x ki )
= i=1 j =1 ij × J
× R11
exp ( 0m + 1m x1i + 2m x2i + + km x ki ) PrecisionMode 1 =
m=1
R11 + R21 + R31 + R 41 (8)
N J 1 1 ( kj )2
exp
i=1 j=1 2 103 2 106

N J exp ( 0j + 1j x1i + 2j x2i + + kj x ki )

2.3. Odds ratio
exp i=1 j=1 ij × J
exp ( 0m + 1m x1i + 2m x2i + + km xki )
m=1
The odds ratio (OR) was used to quantify the effect of the ex-
N J 1 ( kj )2 planatory variables on the results and calculated for variables of in-
i=1 j= 1 2 106
(5) terest in the BMNL. The OR of an explanatory variable represents the
increment in the odds of the outcome if the value of the variable in-
where J is travel modes and δij is defined as being equal to 1 if the creases by one unit (Washington et al., 2003; Guo et al. (2018b)). The
observed discrete outcome for passenger i is j, and it is zero otherwise. OR for a variable xk in a BMNL model could be calculated as:
To generate realizations from the posterior joint distribution f(α| Y), the
Metropolis–Hasting sampling approach sequentially draws parameters odds (X , xk + 1) exp(X ) × exp( k )
OR = = = exp( k )
from Eq. (5). The inference can then be made based on the remaining odds (X , xk ) exp(X ) (9)
draws after discarding the draws during the burn-in period. There are
where X = [x1, x2, ⋯, xk] is the 1 × k vector of explanatory variables
several underlying assumptions associated with this modeling method.
and αk is the coefficient of the variable k.
For example, (1) the utility random terms are independent and obey the
same extreme value distribution; (2) each transportation mode has the
2.4. Sample size
same cross response; (3) the utility random terms have the same var-
iance (Koppelman and Bhat, 2006; Houshmand and Masoumi, 2019).
In the process of sampling surveys, the number of samples has a
direct influence on the sampling error. The sampling error then de-
2.2. Model accuracy evaluation
termines the credibility of the samples (Washington et al., 2003; Ko
et al., 2019; Haggar et al., 2019). Therefore, an appropriate sample
The ROC curve was used for model evaluation which was plotted on
number can ensure that the sampling error does not exceed a given
the ordinate with the true positive rate (sensitivity) and the abscissa
range and it can control bias as much as possible. The sample number
with the false positive rate (1-specificity). The area under curve (AUC)
can be calculated as:
was used to measures the prediction accuracy of the model perfor-
mance. Theoretically, the AUC ranges from 0.5 to 1. If the AUC is be- Z 2S 2
n=
tween 0.5 and 0.7, it indicates that the prediction accuracy is low. e2 +
Z2S2
N 1 (10)
When it is between 0.7 and 0.9, it denotes that the prediction accuracy
is at a medium level. The prediction accuracy is only counted as high where n is the number of samples, Z is the value corresponding to the
when the AUC is above 0.9 (Xu et al., 2015; Yang et al., 2018). confidence level, S is the standard deviation, e is the error bound, and N
The accuracy, recall, and precision of the model for each mode j can represents the total population.
be also calculated based on the confusion matrix (Jeong et al., 2018). Based on 95% confidence level used in this study, the numerical
The four-classes confusion matrix of the model can be conducted as value of Z, S, and e were 1.96, 0.5, and 0.03, respectively. Given that
shown in Table 1. The accuracy of the model can be calculated based on the number of annual passengers in Xi'an was about 18,093,140 in
the four-classes confusion matrix, and is defined as a ratio between the 2018, n was calculated as 1067. Considering possible errors and un-
correctly classified samples to the total number of samples R according certainties in the questionnaire surveys, the sampling number was de-
to Eq. (6). termined as 1400. After processing the samples, 1231 valid samples

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X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Table 2
Converted binary confusion matrix for mode 1 as an example.
Modes Predicted class

Mode 1 Non- mode 1

Actual class Mode 1 R11 (true positive) R12+ R13 + R14 (false negative)
Non- mode 1 R21+ R31+ R41 (false positive) R22 + R23 + R24 + R32 + R33 + R34 + R42 + R43 + R44 (true negative)

Fig. 1. An illustrative layout of transportation hubs in Xi'an City (the base map was adopted from Google Map).

Fig. 2. The four phases of intercity travels by multiple modes of transportation.

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X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Table 3
The detailed design and marking of variables.
Variables Marking or calculation of variables

Individual characteristics
Gender “Male” = 1, “Female” = 0
Age “0–19” = 1, “20–29” = 2, “30–39” = 3, “40–49” = 4, “50–59” = 5, and “60 and above” = 6, Unit: Year
Career “Enterprise units” =1, “The personnel of institutions” = 2, “Students” = 3, “Farmers” = 4, “Self-employed households” = 5, and “Others” =6.
Monthly income “˂3” = 1, “3–4” = 2, “4–5” = 3, “5–6” = 4, “6–7” = 5, “ > 7” = 6, Unit: Thousand yuan
Car ownership “No” = 1, “Yes” = 0

Travel demand characteristics

Travel purposes “Mandatory travel” (such as business and returning from holidays) = 1, “Leisure travel” (such as tourism and visiting relatives) = 0
Travel distance The travel distance is determined by finding the fastest route between the origin and the destination on Baidu map (Baidu Company, 2018).

Ticketing characteristics
Ticketing methods “Online ticketing” = 1, “Counter ticketing” = 0.

Access characteristics
Access mode “Public transit” =1, “Car” = 0.
Access time “0–30” = 1, “30–60” =2, “60–90” = 3, Unit: Minutes.
Access cost The access cost is the actual cost from the origin to the transportation hub.

Intercity travel characteristics

Transportation mode “Airplane” = 1, “HSR” = 2, “Traditional Passenger Train” = 3, and “Express bus” = 4.
Intercity travel cost The intercity travel cost is obtained according to the ticket price.
Intercity travel time The intercity travel time is obtained according to the transportation shift and timetable schedule.

Intercity travel service quality perception characteristics

Safety “Very unsafe” = 1, “Unsafe” = 2, “General” = 3, “Safe” = 4, and “Very safe” = 5.
Comfort “Very uncomfortable” = 1, “Uncomfortable” = 2, “General” = 3, “Comfortable” = 4, and “Very comfortable” = 5
Punctuality “Very unpunctual” = 1, “Unpunctual” = 2, “General” = 3, “Punctual” = 4, and “Very punctual” = 5.

Departure characteristics
Departure mode “Public transit” =1, “Car” = 0.
Departure time “0–30” = 1, “30–60” = 2, “60–90” = 3, Unit: Minutes.
Departure cost The departure cost is the actual cost from the transportation hub to the destination.

were obtained from the surveys. For calibration and validation, 80% of
the samples of each transportation mode (985 in total) were randomly
selected and used for model calibration, and another 20% (246) were
used for validation. STATA 15.0 software was used as the modeling
platform for both model calibration and validation.
3. Data collection and description
3.1. Background information
Xi'an is one of the famous touristy cities in China. There are six
world heritage sites and famous scenic spots such as the Xi'an city wall
and the bell and drum towers. In recent years, the number of intercity
passengers traveling in Xi'an has been growing rapidly. During
2010–2018, the average annual growth rate of domestic tourism is
about 15%. With the massive construction of its transportation infra-
structure such as HSR lines and stations, travel modes that meet the
travel demand is also becoming increasingly diverse. Among all the
modes, express bus, HSR, traditional passenger train, and airplane are
the frequent types that passengers often use. The geographical locations
of the Xi'an Xianyang international airport, the north railway station
(the HSR station), the Xi'an railway station (the traditional passenger
train station) and the express bus stations are shown in Fig. 1.
3.2. Design of the questionnaire
The data was collected through a substantial amount of field ques-
tionnaire surveys. For the design of the questionnaire, we assumed that
all visitors face the same generic choices, which include four options,
namely express bus, traditional passenger train, HSR, and airplane.
They were coded into categorical variables (4 = express bus, 3 = tra-
ditional passenger train, 2 = HSR, 1 = airplane). The questionnaire
also contains information on the individual characteristics of passen-
gers, travel demand characteristics, ticketing characteristics, access
characteristics, intercity travel characteristics, intercity travel service
quality perception characteristics, and departure characteristics. These
characteristics are associated with four phases of multimodal choice
behaviors in intercity travels (Fig. 2). The questionnaire was tested
against 50 passengers before the formal surveys. According to their
feedback, the access time and departure time which were set as con-
tinuous variables in the preliminary version were discretized in the final
version, because travelers normally cannot recall the exact access or
departure time. The travel purposes were also further optimized to
obtain the refined final version. The detailed design and marking of
these characteristics were summarized in Table 3.
3.3. Field surveys
Using the questionnaire designed above, data were collected
through face-to-face field interviews. The formal surveys were carried
out with the support from 12 well-trained volunteers. The surveys were
conducted at the Xi'an Xianyang international airport, the HSR station,
the Xi'an railway station, and the Xi'an express bus stations (Fig. 1) from
1st to 10th of March 2018. The weather condition was fairly good
during the survey days.
The random sampling technique was applied in all the field surveys
(Cherry and Cervero, 2007; Campbell et al., 2016), where investigators
were instructed to randomly select one out of every five passengers
passing through their sampling area without biased preference (to
avoid investigator-related bias and control data reliability) (Harpe,
2015). The investigators first explained the purpose of the survey to the
respondents and then invited them to participate in the survey. All
respondents were instructed to fill in forms individually by ticking the
relevant boxes according to their actual trips (the investigators well
informed the respondents about the survey questions and clarified their
follow-up queries). All respondents were assured that the survey is
completely a voluntary participation and their responses will be
anonymized in a good order. Each questionnaire requires about 15 min
to complete. After completing the questionnaire, each respondent re-
ceived a small gift as a reward.

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X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Table 4 4. Results
Descriptive statistics of categorical variables.
Category variable Category Unit Frequency Proportion/% 4.1. Survey results

Dependent In total, there were 1400 questionnaires obtained through the sur-
Transportation Airplane / 161 16.3
veys. The questionnaires with the following problems were excluded:
modes HSR / 369 37.5
Train / 299 30.4
(1) The key information was incomplete; (2) Either the origin or the
Express bus / 156 15.8 destination was not Xi'an city; (3) Inconsistent and contradictory re-
Independent
sponses with obvious mistakes; and (4) Large amount of missing in-
Gender Male / 569 57.8 formation. Finally, 1231 out of 1400 questionnaires were valid re-
Female / 416 42.2 sponses that can be used for this study.
Age < 19 Year 23 2.4 In order to build a fundamental understanding of the survey data,
20–29 Year 407 41.3
we firstly conducted a preliminary analysis. The preliminary analysis of
30–39 Year 319 32.4
40–49 Year 154 15.6 the categorical variables and the continuous variables are shown in
50–59 Year 65 6.6 Tables 4 and 5, respectively. The statistical results indicate that the
60 and above Year 17 1.7 proportions of males and females in the survey samples were 57.8% and
Career Enterprise unit / 213 21.6 42.2%. The young and middle-aged people were mainly aged 20–59,
Personnel / 174 17.7
institutions
and the middle and low-income passengers made up the highest sample
Student / 278 28.2 proportion. Most of the surveyed passengers mainly purchased tickets
Farmer / 57 5.8 online (with a proportion of 80%, 788 out of 985). The proportion of
Self-employed / 143 14.5 leisure travels was slightly higher than the proportion of mandatory
Other / 120 12.2
travels. Note that the fare rate and the intercity travel time per kilo-
Monthly income ˂3 Thousand 308 31.2
yuan meter were calculated as dividing the travel cost and the travel time by
3–4 Thousand 188 19.1 the travel distance.
yuan The comparisons between the mean of selected important variables
4–5 Thousand 254 25.8 are shown in Figs. 3–5. From Fig. 3, the average fare rates for the air-
yuan
5–6 Thousand 141 14.3
plane, HSR, traditional passenger train, and express bus were 0.56,
yuan 0.47, 0.32, and 0.37 yuan/km, respectively. The intercity average travel
6–7 Thousand 33 3.4 time of the airplane, HSR, traditional passenger train, and express bus
yuan was 2.98 h, 6.10 h, 9.17 h, 5.24 h, respectively. Intuitively, the modes
>7 Thousand 61 6.2
related to intercity operating efficiency, from high to low, were the
yuan
Car ownership Yes / 453 46 airplane, HSR, traditional passenger train, and express bus.
No / 532 54 Fig. 4 shows that the average travel distance of the airplane, HSR,
Ticketing method Counter / 197 20 traditional passenger train, and express bus was about 1392 km,
Online / 788 80 848 km, 648 km, and 336 km, respectively. It confirms that airplanes
Travel purpose Mandatory / 474 48.1
are more advantageous in long-distance travels, HSR and traditional
travel
Leisure travel / 511 51.9 passenger trains are more suitable for medium-distance travels,
Access mode Public transit / 677 68.7 whereas express buses are more used for short-distance travels. In ad-
Car / 308 31.3 dition, the passengers' perception of service quality indicates a strong
Access time 0–30 Minute 318 32.3
belief among passengers that the HSR has the highest level of safety,
30–60 Minute 363 36.9
60–90 Minute 304 30.9 followed by the airplane and traditional passenger train, and the ex-
Departure mode Public transit / 713 72.4 press bus has the lowest perceived safety. The result also indicates that
Car / 272 27.6 the airplane and HSR have the highest comfort, followed by the tradi-
Departure time 0–30 Minute 489 49.6 tional passenger train and express bus, whereas a different ranking was
30–60 Minute 322 32.7
found in perceived punctuality (HSR > traditional passenger train >
60–90 Minute 173 17.6
airplane > express bus).
The access time associated with the airplane was higher than that of
the HSR and traditional passenger train (Fig. 5). Again, the access time
associated with the express bus was the lowest among all. The de-
parture time was similar to the access time. It is also clear that the
Table 5 access cost of passengers by HSR was the lowest, whereas the access
Descriptive statistics of continuous variables. cost by airplane is the highest. Lastly, a slightly different ranking for
Continuous variables Unit Min Max Mean S.D. departure cost was also found (airplane > traditional passenger
train > HSR > express bus).
Travel distance Km 160 2831 796.5600 590.4000
Intercity travel cost Yuan 7 2600 304.9500 313.5550
4.2. Determination of the independent variables
Intercity travel time Hour 0.2200 52 6.3819 6.3711
Fare rate Yuan/km 0.0102 18.1500 0.4252 0.7848
Intercity travel time per Hour/km 0.0002 1.5000 0.0145 0.0571 The correlation analysis was used to explore the original variables
kilometer related to the mode choice. We found that age, monthly income, car
Access cost Yuan 1 300 13.8081 11.5200 ownership, travel purposes, ticketing methods, travel distance, intercity
Departure cost Yuan 1 200 19.2477 11.8700
travel cost, intercity travel time, safety, comfort, punctuality, access
Safety / 2 5 4.1117 0.7183
Comfort / 1 5 3.7878 0.8094 time, access mode, access cost, departure time, and departure cost have
Punctuality / 2 5 3.8386 0.7485 a strong correlation with the travel mode choice. To evaluate factors
further and avoid the collinearity among these original variables, we
converted the “fare rate per kilometer” and the “intercity travel time
per kilometer” into the fare rate per hundred kilometers and the

6
X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Fig. 3. Mean of intercity travel cost and intercity travel time.

Fig. 4. Mean of travel distance and service quality.

intercity travel time per hundred kilometers, respectively, and con-
ducted an ANOVA analysis (Table 6) between each variable and mode
choice to identify their effect intensity. If some variables were found
significantly correlated, they were input into the model in turn with
close monitoring on the overall model fitting and the parameter esti-
mation. We only considered those variables of strong effects and no
estimation bias in the model. Finally, a total number of 12 indicators
were selected for the modeling purpose, including age, car ownership,
ticketing method, access time, travel purposes, travel distance, fare rate
per hundred kilometers, intercity travel time per hundred kilometers,
safety, comfort, punctuality, and departure time. The variance inflation
factor (VIF) of variables (Table 7) indicates that there was no obvious
collinearity among the variables after the selection.
4.3. Parameter estimation
The express bus was taken as a reference category since the express
bus is a common travel method for passengers in China. The MCMC
simulation-based full Bayesian approach was employed to estimate the
posterior distributions of the model parameters. The independent
Markov chains for each of the parameters with diverse initial values run
for 12,500 iterations. The first 2500 iterations in each chain were used
for monitoring convergence and then discarded as burn-in runs. The
convergence of the posterior distribution was monitored by visual

7
X. Li, et al.
Fig. 5. Mean of access/departure time and cost.
inspection of the trace and autocorrelation plots.
Table 8 shows the estimation results of the model parameters, where
“Mean” is the average of the posterior distribution; “S.D.” refers to the
standard deviation of the posterior distribution, describing the degree
of variation of the parameters; 2.5% is the lower limit of the 95%
confidence interval, and 97.5% is the upper limit of the 95% confidence
interval. If the variable confidence interval did not include 0, the
variable was statistically significant when affecting the travel mode
choice. In contrast, the variable was insignificant on the 95% con-
fidence interval if a variable confidence interval included 0. Note that
only the statistically significant variables at a 95% confidence interval
are presented here. The OR values were also estimated to evaluate the
quantitative impact of each explanatory variable on the probability of
the multimodal choice behaviors.
4.4. Model validation and accuracy
The ROC curves of the calibration dataset using the BMNL model for
the airplane, HSR, traditional passenger train, and express bus are
shown in Fig. 6, and the ROC curves of the validation dataset are shown
in Fig. 7, in which we can see that the model has an overall high-per-
formance level in terms of prediction accuracy. Furthermore, the con-
fusion matrix of calibration dataset and validation dataset are presented
in Table 9, and the AUCs, the accuracy of the model, the precision, and
the recall measures for four modes are shown in Table 10, in which we
can see that the accuracy of the calibration dataset is 71.34%, the ac-
curacy of the validation dataset is 71.95%, and the recall and precision
of each mode are relatively balanced, indicating that the model is of
good fitting performance and prediction ability.
4.5. Factor analysis on choice behaviors
According to the OR values in Table 6, the influential power of each
significant variable on multimodal choice behaviors can be analyzed.
We found that age was significantly associated with HSR choice. The
positive coefficient of age for HSR indicates that older passengers are
more likely to choose HSR for intercity travels. Moreover, the OR of
1.2144 for this variable shows that, for every 10 years of age increment,
the odds of the passengers choosing HSR increased by 21.44%. The
8
Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776
finding is inconsistent with the previous studies (Li and Sheng, 2016)
that age is positively related to the choice of airplane, but not sig-
nificant for HSR. One of the possible explanations is that older pas-
sengers prefer a comfortable and reliable way of travels.
Car ownership was negatively related to HSR and traditional pas-
senger train choices. According to the OR analysis, passengers without
cars were half times less likely to travel by HSR than passengers with
cars. Moreover, passengers without cars were 0.3853 times less likely to
travel by traditional passenger train than passengers with cars. This is
intuitive as passengers with cars have better economic strength and
prone to pay for safe and comfortable travel modes.
The travel purposes showed a significant positive association with
the airplane and traditional passenger train modes. The OR of 2.1962
for this variable indicates that passengers for mandatory purposes were
2.1962 times more likely to travel by airplane than passengers for lei-
sure purposes. In addition, travelers for the mandatory purposes were
slightly more likely to travel by traditional passenger train than those
for leisure. The explanation could be clear that passengers for manda-
tory purposes are more willing to choose a relatively fast mode of
transportation. However, the sign of this variable for the HSR category
is not as significant as expected.
An important finding is that the ticketing method had a significantly
positive association with the probability of choosing the airplane and
HSR. The OR values show that online ticketing passengers were
45.2892 times and 2.2890 times more likely to travel by airplane and
HSR than the counter ticketing passengers. The investigation of the
relationship between the ticketing method and the intercity multimodal
choice has been relatively limited (Xu et al., 2018). This finding might
relate to the individual attributes of passengers in different travel
modes and the level of convenience in ticketing systems of different
modes. One potential reason might be that there is currently no uniform
ticketing system for the express bus services in China, whereas airline
tickets, HSR tickets, and traditional train tickets can be easily purchased
online because of their uniform ticketing system.
Distance is also a very important factor and had positive effects on
the choice of the airplane, HSR, and traditional passenger train in the
model results. Based on the OR analysis, for every 1-km increment in
the travel distance, the odds of choosing travel by air increases by
0.38% and the odds of choosing travel by HSR and traditional passenger
X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Table 6
ANOVA between intercity mode choice and each variable.
Variable Sum of squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Gender Between groups 1.061 3 0.354 1.450 0.227

Within groups 239.248 981 0.244
Total 240.309 984
Age Between groups 23.299 3 7.766 7.407 0.000
Within groups 1028.565 981 1.048
Total 1051.864 984
Career Between groups 13.468 3 4.489 1.625 0.182
Within groups 2710.762 981 2.763
Total 2724.229 984
Monthly income Between groups 77.837 3 25.946 12.789 0.000
Within groups 1990.157 981 2.029
Total 2067.994 984
Car ownership Between groups 8.940 3 2.980 12.401 0.000
Within groups 235.726 981 0.240
Total 244.666 984
Travel purposes Between groups 2.149 3 0.716 2.883 0.035
Within groups 243.753 981 0.248
Total 245.903 984
Travel distance Between groups 97,349,261.840 3 32,449,753.947 129.694 0.000
Within groups 244,948,710.429 979 250,202.973
Total 342,297,972.269 982
Ticketing methods Between groups 17.105 3 5.702 39.811 0.000
Within groups 140.495 981 0.143
Total 157.600 984
Access time Between groups 32.734 3 10.911 18.171 0.000
Within groups 589.067 981 0.600
Total 621.801 984
Access mode Between groups 3.800 3 1.267 5.977 0.000
Within groups 207.891 981 0.212
Total 211.691 984
Access cost Between groups 42,043.835 3 14,014.612 33.355 0.000
Within groups 318,065.356 757 420.166
Total 360,109.191 760
Fare rate per hundred kilometers Between groups 7.504 3 2.501 4.100 0.007
Within groups 597.250 979 0.610
Total 604.753 982
Intercity travel time per hundred kilometers Between groups 0.039 3 0.013 24.390 0.000
Within groups 0.526 976 0.001
Total 0.566 979
Safety Between groups 55.338 3 18.446 40.001 0.000
Within groups 452.378 981 0.461
Total 507.716 984
Comfort Between groups 101.048 3 33.683 60.785 0.000
Within groups 543.605 981 0.554
Total 644.654 984
Punctuality Between groups 49.997 3 16.666 32.611 0.000
Within groups 501.337 981 0.511
Total 551.334 984
Departure time Between groups 57.173 3 19.058 37.105 0.000
Within groups 503.347 980 0.514
Total 560.520 983
Departure mode Between groups 5.753 3 1.918 9.843 0.000
Within groups 191.136 981 0.195
Total 196.889 984
Departure cost Between groups 59,058.056 3 19,686.019 51.822 0.000
Within groups 371,521.815 978 379.879
Total 430,579.871 981

Table 7 train increases by 0.20% and 0.17%, respectively. This is in line with
Multi-collinearity test results. the fact that the longer the distance, the higher the probability that
Variable Code VIF Variable Code VIF
passengers choose to travel by air, followed by the other two modes.
However, there is no fixed rule for which modes would become more
Age X1 1.109 Intercity travel time per X7 1.168 attractive per increment in the travel distance; i.e., how these modes
hundred kilometers shift will depend on the actual increment in a different range of dis-
Car ownership X2 1.088 Safety X8 1.214
tance. Thus, we further investigated the evolution of multimodal choice
Ticketing methods X3 1.151 Comfort X9 1.084
Travel purposes X4 1.248 Punctuality X10 1.061 probability against distance. As shown in Fig. 8, the travel distance has
Travel distance X5 1.64 Access time X11 1.119 a non-linear effect on the intercity travel mode choice. As the travel
Fare rate per hundred X6 1.733 Departure time X12 1.109 distance increases, the choice probability of different modes varies
kilometers
significantly, especially for probabilities of traveling by airplane and
express bus. When the travel distance reaches about 700 km, the choice
probability of the traditional passenger train begins to decline.

9
X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Similarly, when the travel distance reaches about 1100 km, the choice

0.3853

1.2160
1.0017

1.5165
1.7720
1.5119
probability of HSR begins to decline. This finding can provide a re-

OR
ference for the spatial planning of regional multimodal traffic facilities.

–
–
–

–
–
It also further confirms what we found in the previous analysis that the

−0.8734

−4.1242
express bus is suitable for short-distance travels, the HSR and tradi-

0.3030
0.0022

0.4874
0.7439
0.5409
97.5%
tional passenger train are suitable for medium-distance travels, and the
–

–
–
–

–
airplane is suitable for long-distance travels (Zhou et al., 2019a,
2019b).
−1.0359

−4.4523
0.0901
0.0012

0.3476
0.4111
0.2801
The fare rate was found to be positively related to the airplane and
2.5%
Traditional passenger train

HSR choices, indicating that the more the passengers spend per kilo-
–

–
–
–

–
meter, the greater the probability of choosing travel by air or HSR. For
0.0421

0.0556
0.0002

0.0354
0.0851
0.0654

0.0828
every 0.01 yuan/km increment, the odds of the passenger’ choice of air
S.D.

and HSR increases by 9.10% and 4.42%, respectively. This is similar to

–

–
–
–

–
the previous studies (Can, 2013) that the fare rate plays an important
−0.9538

−4.2930
role in intercity travel mode choice. It is noteworthy that the fare rate
0.1955
0.0017

0.4164
0.5721
0.4134
Mean

had no significant impact on the passengers' choice of travel by tradi-

–

–
–
–

tional train due to similar fare rates between the traditional passenger
train and the express bus.
1.2144
0.5510
2.2890

1.0020
1.0442
0.1783
1.7538
2.3288
2.4989
1.3875
1.3924

The intercity travel time per hundred kilometers was also found to
OR

be an important factor affecting choices by airplane and HSR. The ne-

gative coefficients of the variable for airplane and HSR indicate that the
−10.7273
−0.4044

−1.5208

greater the intercity travel time per kilometer, the smaller the prob-
0.3337

1.0062

0.0026
0.0560

0.7661
1.0367
1.1095
0.4843
0.5098
97.5%

ability of passengers choosing to travel by airplane or HSR. For every

–

0.01 h/km raise in the intercity travel time per kilometer, the odds of
the passengers choosing travel by airplane and HSR were significantly
−10.9427
−0.7882

−1.9392

reduced by 99.98% and 82.17%, respectively. This finding is consistent

0.0405

0.6431

0.0015
0.0324

0.3484
0.6583
0.7264
0.1691
0.1515
2.5%

with the results obtained by Can (2013), which indicated that adjusting
–

the intercity travel time per unit distance would be an important

strategy for service providers. Since the intercity travel time per unit
0.0749
0.0994
0.0934

0.0003
0.0060
0.1056
0.1072
0.0982
0.0978
0.0803
0.0946
0.0566
S.D.

distance was largely determined by the operating speed of the vehicle,

–

improving the operating speed for air transportation and HSR in-
tuitively plays an important role in improving the competitiveness of
−10.8350
−0.5960

−1.7245

these modes.
0.1942

0.8281

0.0020
0.0432

0.5618
0.8454
0.9158
0.3275
0.3310
Mean
HSR

The accessibility of transportation hubs can also have an important

–

impact. The positive mean of the access time for airplane shows that the
longer the access time the passengers spend, the greater the passenger's
45.2892
2.1926
1.0038
1.0910
0.0002
1.8027
2.4144

2.2445
2.6631

probability of choosing air travel. For every 30-min increase in the

OR

access time, the odds of the passengers choosing to travel by airplane

–
–

increment by 124.45%. Similarly, with the increase of every 30-min in

−16.3548
−8.5236

Note: Parameters that were significant at the 95% critical level are showed in the table.

the access time, the odds of the passengers choosing HSR or traditional
4.1018
1.2404
0.0046
0.1012

0.9574
1.1699

1.2418
1.4188
97.5%

passenger train increases by 38.75% and 51.19%, respectively. This

–
–

finding is in line with that of Martín et al. (2014). A similar pattern can
also be found in the departure time. The accessibility of the transpor-
−16.8998
−8.9800

tation hubs is strongly related to the layout of the hubs and their con-
3.5586
0.3147
0.0030
0.0713

0.2480
0.5545

0.3784
0.5864
2.5%

nections to other modes. Therefore, improving the connection between

–
–

transportation hubs could further enhance its competitiveness.

For perceptual factors, the quality of service, such as safety, com-
0.1332
0.2485
0.0004
0.0077
0.1195
0.1837
0.1638

0.2232
0.2082
0.1504
Parameter estimation

fort, and punctuality, also obviously affects travelers' choice behavior

S.D.

–
–

(Litman, 2008). The understanding of the relationship between the

perceptions of service quality and the intercity multimodal choice is
−16.6255
−8.7455
Airplane

relatively limited (Johansson et al., 2006; Bocker et al., 2016; Sarkar

3.8131
0.7851
0.0038
0.0871

0.5893
0.8815

0.8085
0.9795
Mean

and Mallikarjuna, 2018). In our investigation, safety is found to be

–
–

positively associated with airplane or HSR choices. Based on the OR

analysis, the higher the passenger's demand for safety, the more likely
Intercity travel time per hundred kilometers

they will choose the airplane or HSR to travel. For each additional unit
Parameter estimation of BMNL model.

of demand for safety, the odds of passengers choosing the airplane and
HSR increase by 80.27% and 75.38%, respectively. The result is in-
Fare rate per hundred kilometers

tuitively correct as aircraft and HSR have better protective facilities

which make passengers feel safer in travel. However, the sign of this
variable for the traditional passenger train is not significant.
Comfort had a significantly positive impact on the passengers'
Ticketing methods

choice of the airplane, HSR, and traditional passenger train. The higher
Travel purposes
Travel distance

Departure time
Car ownership

the passenger's demand for comfort, the more likely they will choose
Access time
Punctuality

the airplane, HSR, and traditional passenger train for the travels. For
Variable

Comfort
Table 8

Safety

_cons

each incremental unit of comfort, the odds of the passengers choosing

Age

the airplane, HSR, and traditional passenger train increases by

10
X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Fig. 6. Multimodal ROC of calibration dataset using BMNL.

Fig. 7. Multimodal ROC of validation dataset using BMNL.

141.44%, 132.88%, and 51.65%, respectively. One possible explana-
tion could be that the airplane, HSR, and traditional passenger train
have a cleaner environment and better service facilities than the express
bus.
Punctuality was found to be significantly associated with HSR and
traditional passenger train choice, and insignificant for the airplane.
The result indicates that the higher the passenger's demand for punc-
tuality, the more likely they will choose the HSR. For each incremental
unit of punctuality, the odds of the passengers choosing the HSR in-
creases by 149.89%. Similarly, the odds of the passengers choosing the
HSR increases by 77.20% with the increase of each incremental unit of
punctuality. The surveyed passengers were more likely to travel by HSR
and traditional passenger train when “being on time” is a priority in
their trips. The finding is straightforward because the airplane and
express bus are more sensitive to external environmental influences,
such as weather conditions, resulting in delays. However, the impact of
the external environment on the HSR and traditional passenger train is
relatively weak.
5. Conclusion
In this study, we conducted a comprehensive survey to investigate
the multimodal choice behaviors of intercity travelers in a touristy city,
Xi'an, China. The data were attained for the airplane, HSR, traditional
passenger train, and express bus from the perspective of the ticketing
stage, access stage, intercity travel stage, and departure stage. The

11
X. Li, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102776

Table 9
The confusion matrix of calibration dataset and validation dataset.
Dataset Modes Predicted class

Airplane HSR Traditional passenger train Express bus Total

Calibration Actual class Airplane 86 71 3 1 161

HSR 3 342 15 9 369
Traditional passenger train 3 59 177 60 299
Express bus 3 13 42 98 156
Total 95 485 237 168 985
Validation Airplane 20 19 1 0 40
HSR 0 85 6 1 92
Traditional passenger train 0 13 44 18 75
Express bus 0 3 8 28 39
Total 20 120 59 47 246

Table 10 future transportation development and may provide effective knowl-

The AUC value, precision, recall and accuracy for the model. edge supports for policy-makers to plan for relevant management
Dataset Evaluation Transportation modes
strategies regarding multimodal choice demand in a touristy city. For
index example, developing HSR services could be prioritized because of its
Airplane HSR Traditional Express bus significant advantages in punctuality, safety, and comfort. In light of
passenger train the emerging trend in aging society throughout China, development in
Calibration AUC 0.9785 0.9263 0.8614 0.9025
HSR services could be prioritized as we found the elderly prefer this
Precision 90.53% 70.52% 74.68% 58.33% mode of travel from the data we collected. In addition, improving the
Recall 53.42% 92.68% 59.20% 62.82% efficiency of HSR services and traditional passenger train services and
Accuracy 71.34% adjusting their fare rates could be important means to promote the
Validation AUC 0.9816 0.8974 0.8521 0.8968
mode shift from high-energy travel modes (traveling by airplane and
Precision 100.00% 70.83% 74.58% 59.57%
Recall 50.00% 92.39% 58.67% 71.79% express buses) to low-energy transport modes. For service providers, an
Accuracy 71.95% efficient and unified online ticket system should also be considered for
their day-to-day service operation and it could be particularly im-
portant for modes such as the express bus.
There are several limitations in this study. The data used in this
study was limited to only one city. Passengers' choice behaviors may
vary in different cultural contexts and environments, leading to dif-
ferent characteristics of choice behaviors (Zhou et al., 2019a, 2019b).
As such, the transferability of the proposed model should be validated
using the data from other cities. In addition, there could be a potential
data imbalance issue. Possible solutions for data imbalance could be
two-fold: (1) reduce the degree of data imbalance by changing the
sample distribution of the calibration dataset. (2) appropriately modify
the learning algorithm to adapt to the imbalanced classification pro-
blem. For example, using different weights as penalties for categories to
mitigate the imbalanced estimations in the calibration process.
This study provides a factor analysis of multimodal travel choice
behaviors in a new case study of China. The factor analysis includes
several new factors including the traveler's ticketing methods and the
Fig. 8. Evolution of multimodal choice probability against distance. characteristics of travel demand, accessibility, intercity travel, and
subjective perceptions, which sheds new light on identifying influential
factors. For future work, we will measure the marginal effect and elastic
BMNL model was used to facilitate an in-depth factor analysis and ROC
value of those significant variables from the perspective of economics,
(and other accuracy measures) and OR were applied for model vali-
which could be useful to formulate the traffic demand management
dation and choice behavior analysis.
strategy accurately. Moreover, the consideration of the interaction be-
The investigation shows that, apart from well-known factors such as
tween the indicators could also be investigated in the future to further
age and car ownership, the traveler's ticketing method and the char-
clarify the heterogeneity of those factors.
acteristics of travel demand, accessibility, intercity travel, and sub-
jective perceptions, which have been rarely discussed before, also have
significant impacts on travel mode choices. Using express bus as the
Author agreement
reference group, we found that other perception factors, such as safety,
comfort, and punctuality, also have important contributions to char-
The authors declare that the manuscript has not been published
acterize the passengers' choice decision. In addition, the distance, ser-
previously and that it is not under consideration for publication else-
vice quality of mode, and accessibility of transportation hubs are also
where. Also, the authors declare no conflict of interest.
key elements.
The findings of this study could have managerial implications for

12
X. Li, et al.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NO:51878166), Shaanxi Natural Science
Foundation Youth Project (NO: 2017JQ5086), Shaanxi Education
Department Special Science and Technology Project Science
(NO:19JK0477) and Technology Foundation Project of Xi'an University
of Architectural Science and Technology (NO: ZR18021, QN1711). The
authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their con-
structive comments in the peer-review process.
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