An Analytical Model to Locate Emergency Services.

Abstract

Infrastructure facilities within a city are supposed to be located in such a way that they are central to the location of demand. Location-allocation problems consider how to locate these facillitieg that will, most economically, supply the service to a given set of destinations. This concept has been applied in optimizing emergency services such as ambulance dispatch centres and fire stations. When the demand for these services is high, there should be a proper way of allocating the stations to each demand area. Each service allocation involves several interconnected decisions such as number and locations of stations and vehicle dispatch systems. This paper presents an analytical model to determine the number of fire stations and their locations using the total cost minimization approach. The analytical model developed in this paper is based on various cost components related to a fire incidence. The major cost components considered are the fire service cost and the fire damage cost. The model development begins with a simplified model for a circular fire station coverage area. We further improve the fire station model relaxing some assumptions made in the simplified model. Graphical methods are used to present the solution procedure when non-linear functions are involved. As an extension of the work, we attempt to develop a model to find the optimal coverage area when the ambulances are allocated to fire stations. The model presented in this paper is based on number of assumptions made to keep the mathematical modelling approach at a manageable level. However, this model provides the basis for a more comprehensive approach to model fire stations in real life situations. In future, the model will be improved relaxing assumptions, and a sensitivity analysis will be conducted to bring the model close to the reality as possible.