Planning criteria and allocation model of emergency facilities: fire station location in a Korean City and application to urban planning (470)

Theme Track: Locational Analysis - Locational Modeling

Author:
Kim, Yeong

Much of the work on location/allocation models of public facilities have involved a great deal effort in refining the computational procedures for identifying optimum solutions. These models apply to specific types of service based on two different kinds of objectives: those relating mainly o ordinary services for which distance or time is important; and coverage objectives, more suitable for emergency services for which service or response time is the main issue. In the case of emergency services, maximal covering service time is typically necessary for the provision of adequate services. Particularly for optimum allocation of emergency facilities, mathematical models and spatial models with better graphical representation have recently been developed using a range of technology such as GIS, OR, and graphical tools. However, such models may lack efficiency and equity if applied to the determination of emergency facilities and if services are provided without careful consideration of planning guidelines based on the distribution of population and particular delivery systems. For example, Coombes and Charlton (1994) compared fire station location with the distribution of population in order to evaluate the efficiency of fire service delivery and costs in an urban context within the UK. Church and Eaton (1987) have dealt with facility location/allocation problems for multiple levels of services by each different hierarchical service delivery system operating in an explicit hierarchy network. In addition to the delivery systems, a non-referral service system or a dispatching system will be considered for allocation of emergency facilities providing fire and police services. These models can be applied to the location/allocation problem for emergency facilities in networks. Huston and Revelle (1989) have developed a maximal direct tree problem in a network and it may be very useful for developing emergency routes for fire services. Unlike traditional models based on Euclidean distance, network-based models place heavy emphasis on the ease of access for fire engines. On the other hand, in locating fire stations, the planning criteria should be applied to minimize the response time since it must be critical to an emergency call. Mirchandani and Reilly (1987) considered the first and second units' response time and the sizes of fire districts used to determine the optimal spatial distribution of fire fighting units. Badri, Mortagy, and Alsayed (1998) developed a policy-based covering model with cost-related objectives for fire station location. Such models can be also integrated into covering problems in that most of them deal with the population covered within a given response time or with efficiency in fire service provision. Before the allocation models for such an emergency facility as a fire station can be applied with confidence to establish planning guidelines for local government, their results should be carefully evaluated. If they are required to consider both delivery systems and spatial distribution, the alternative results from those models should be evaluated in terms of efficiency and equity. Therefore, this study aims at establishing models for the allocation of new fire stations that may be incorporated in planning guidelines, used to evaluate alternative strategies for future urban planning and management. The paper begins by examining planning criteria that are employed in the particular metropolitan area, Chinju in South Korea, in the light of data about the distribution of population and income, fire incidences, building/land uses, types of fire, budgets, and standards of fire equipment, response time, and the number of fire officials. Then, in order for us to explore better alternatives in terms of efficiency and equity, possible allocation alternatives will be identified using some coverage models and the workloads of each allocation combination will be evaluated. It the final section, different model applications based on plane and on network will be compared using GIS to establish which ones are most appropriate for incorporation in planning guidelines for emergency facilities. This study is expected to be a useful contribution to emergency service planning in which planning criteria and technical approaches are taken into account more explicitly.

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