Optimally Locating Facilities
on a Network
A Second Application of
Transportation Network Analysis
There Are Three Things
Important When Buying a House:
zLocation
zLocation
zLocation
Examples:
z Libraries
z Ambulances
z Warehouses
z Factories
z Restaurants
z Banks
z Telephone centers
z Military facilities
Let’s Consider Objective
Functions:
z Minimize average travel time or
distance
z Minimize worst case (maximum) travel
time or distance
z Minimize fraction of population greater
than 10 minutes from a facility
z Maximize minimum travel time
Classic Location Problems
z Median Problems
– Minimize average travel distance (time)
– Sometimes called Minisum
z Center Problems
– Minimize maximum distance to (from) a
facility
z Requirements Problems
– Allocate to achieve some objective
Median Problem
z Nodal weights h
j
, representing fraction
of customers from node j
z Sum of h
j
's equals one.
z We have an undirected network G(N,A)
z Objective: locate k facilities on G such
that mean travel distance to a closest
facility is minimized
G(N,A), | N |= n
h
j
≥ 0 h
j
j=1
n
∑
=1
X
k
= {x
1
,x
2
,...,x
k
}; x
j
∈G
d(X
k
,j)≡ min. distance between any one o
points x
i
∈X
k
and the node j∈N.
d(X
k
,j)≡
MIN
x
i
∈X
k
d(x
i
,j)
J(X
k
) ≡ h
j
d(X
k
j=1
n
∑
,j) = mean travel time to (from) closest facility
Find X
k
*
∈G such that for all X
k
∈G,
J(X
k
*
) ≤ J(X
k
)
X
k
*
is a k - median of G(N,A) with a given h = (h
1
,h
2
,...,h
n
)
Theorem
z At least one k-median exists solely on
the nodes of G.
Proof by contradiction for k=1
pq
d(x,p) d(x,q)
P
Q
Proof
z Start with 2 node problem, w
p
> w
q
.
J(x) = w
p
x + (1 ? w
p
)(1? x)
= 2w
p
x + 1? x ? w
p
= x(2w
p
?1) +1 ? w
p
Proof - con't.
z Draw this graphically
z Add general multi-node network
z Add breakpoints
1
2
3
4
5
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
2
3
4
5
2
2
2
2
1
1
h
1
=0.1
h
2
=0.1
h
3
=0.0
h
4
=0.4
h
5
=0.4
1
2
3
4
5
2
2
2
2
1
1
h
1
=0.1
h
2
=0.1
h
3
=0.0
h
4
=0.4
h
5
=0.4
1
2
3
4
5
2
2
2
2
1
1
h
1
=0.1
h
2
=0.1
h
3
=0.0
h
4
=0.4
h
5
=0.4
Summary for 1-Median
z Step 1: Find travel distance matrix D
z Step 2: Find (h
j
,d(i,j))
z Step 3: Find row sums of (h
j
,d(i,j))
– Take the minimum
Center Problems
G(N,A), undirected
Locate one facility so as to minimize
maximum distance to a node
1
2
3
4
5
2
2
2
2
1
1
h
1
=0.1
h
2
=0.1
h
3
=0.0
h
4
=0.4
h
5
=0.4
Recall:
0 2 3 2 4
2 0 2 3 3
D= 3 2 0 1 1
2 3 1 0 2
4 3 1 2 0
Nodes 2, 3 and 4 all vertex centers
Center Problem
z No nodal solution in general for the
absolute center, only for the vertex
center
Let x ∈G(N,A)
Define the "maximum distance function":
m(x) ≡
MAX
j ∈N
d(x, j)
[]
Objective for the absolute center :
Find x
*
∈G such that m(x
*
) ≤ m(x) for all x ∈G.
Single Absolute Center
Algorithm:
z 1. Find all local centers (one for each
link)
z 2. Choose a local center with smallest
m(x
l
). That is an absolute center x* of
G.