Facility Location Under Zone Pricing

Zone pricing consists in determining simultaneously several delivered prices together with the zones where these prices apply. A model and algorithm are proposed to determine optimal facility locations, prices, tariff-zones, and market areas in order to maximize the firm's profit under zone pricing. The resulting nonlinear mixed-integer program is tackled by projecting the objective function on the price space, solving repeatedly uncapacitated facility location problems for fixed values of the prices. The implicit profit function so defined is optimized by branch-and-bound. Computational results are reported.     

Equity and Efficiency in Public Facility Location

In designing a system of urban public service centers, planners should consider both equity and efficiency effects in selecting the size of each center and the spacing between centers. The paper establishes theoretical and operational concepts for evaluating equity and efficiency, as affected by size and spacing alternatives. No objective means exists for determining the relative importance of equity and efficiency, so the decision, ultimately, is subjective. However, theoretical, empirical and simulation evidence indicate that equity is more sensitive than efficiency to the selection of size and spacing, within a wide range of alternatives. This suggests that the equity criterion is important in the design of public service systems, and deserves more attention in the public facility location literature than it has received in the past.     

On the Logit Approach to Competitive Facility Location

The random utility model in competitive facility location is one approach for estimating the market share captured by a retail facility in a competitive environment. However, it requires extensive computational effort for finding the optimal location for a new facility because its objective function is based on a k -dimensional integral. In this paper we show that the random utility model can be approximated by a logit model. The proportion of the buying power at a demand point that is attracted to the new facility can be approximated by a logit function of the distance to it. This approximation demonstrates that using the logit function of the distance for estimating the market share is theoretically founded in the random utility model. A simplified random utility model is defined and approximated by a logit function. An iterative Weiszfeld-type algorithm is designed to find the best location for a new facility using the logit model. Computational experiments show that the logit approximation yields a good location solution to the random utility model.     

Optimal Facility Location in a One-Dimensional Spatial Market

This paper analyzes properties of the optimal spatial arrangement of what may be interpreted as a class of public facilities. Optimality is defined as cost minimization. Three different optimality criteria are considered, and for each, the necessary and, sufficient conditions, market area size, and production levels, are derived. The relationship between optimal production levels and number of facilities needed is also considered. Next the results of implementing various pricing strategies are analyzed with emphasis given to marginal and uniform pricing. It is shown that, given certain conditions, all facilities incur operating deficits, given marginal pricing. Estimates on the level of the deficits are derived in terms of location rents. Finally, in the appendix, several important results from other studies are derived as special cases of the basic model.     

The Theory of Welfare Considerations in Public Facility Location Problems

The paper provides a general theoretical framework for analyzing the locational choice of public facilities from the point of view of social welfare. Spatial interactions of individuals and economies to scale in the public sector are taken into account, and that, in turn, adds another dimension to the set of alternatives facing the decision maker. His choice has to be made by considering size as well as space alternatives for the provision of the public service. The paper presents a theoretical structure for ranking those alternatives.     

Welfare Theory,Public Goods,and Public Facility Location

The paper discusses a number of issues that are important to the development of a useful normative “welfare theory” of the public space economy. Attention is specifically focused on theoretical welfare economic models of public goods provided at facilities to which consumers must travel for consumption. The recent analysis of Bigman and ReVelle [2] is subjected to critical scrutiny and found wanting. An alternative, more complex but still very simple, analysis is provided.     

Errors Caused by Rounded Data in Two Simple Facility Location Problems

As a rule, data to be used in locational analysis are either rounded up or rounded down. Therefore, error is incurred if such location data are used. The objective of this paper is to examine location error and cost error due to rounding in unweighted minisum and minimax problems in one-dimensional continuous space. Several conclusions on rounding effects are obtained by examining the respective mean-squared errors. First, rounding tends to exert more serious influence on the minisum problem than on the minimax problem. Second, in both location problems, the location error shows a pattern that is the inverse of that of the cost error.     

The Optimal Nodal Location of Public Facilities With Price-Sensitive Demand

The purpose of this paper is to present some models for the location of public facilities in nodal networks that explicitly maximize social welfare by accounting for price-elastic demand functions. The models presented here are general; yet they are mathematically equivalent to the plant location problem and are therefore amenable to solution procedures developed for the plant location problem. The models presented here distinguish between two institutional environments that reflect the degree of power of the consumer to choose which facility to patronize. If consumers can be assigned arbitrarily to facilities and can be denied service, then the environment is one of public fiat. If consumers must be served at the facility of their choice, then a “serve-allcomers” environment exists. Separate models for each environment are specified, and the relationship between optimal assignments and pricing policies is developed.     

The Evaluation of Urban Public Facility Location: An Alternative to Benefit-Cost Analysis

This paper attempts to overcome some specific problems which exist with the use of benefit-cost analysis in evaluating the impact of public facilities. The concepts developed explicitly recognize the importance of the spatial distribution of impacts and the fact that tastes can differ substantially among people. By utilizing the concepts of the generalized environment and of place utility, a more general and valuable conceptual model can be developed which may be useful in preventing much current conflict over public investment decisions. The model has an explicit concern with the problem of equity and is thus only a small step in a growing field of inquiry within geography.     

An Interactive Approach to the Central Facility Location Problem: Locating Pediatric Hospitals in Warsaw

Most of the conventional approaches to the central facility location problem neglect the interaction of analyst and decision-maker during the locational choice process. This paper presents a new interactive approach to the central facility location problem. It is assumed that the problem is formulated by an analyst as a multiobjective optimization problem. Then the decision-maker searches for a satisfactory solution working directly with the computer system. The interactive procedure was implemented on IBM-PC XT/AT as the decision support system DINAS (Dynamic Interactive Network Analysis System) which enables the solution of various multiobjective location-allocation problems. DINAS has been successfully used for solving a real-world planning problem, namely for finding locations for pediatric hospitals in the Warsaw region.     

旅游资源新论——基于游憩需求变化与技术进步的视角

旅游资源是旅游业赖以发展的基础。伴随着旅游业的发展,有关旅游资源的认知与研究始终没有间断。为规范旅游资源的认知和界定,国家先后颁布了旅游资源分类及评价的技术标准。在贯彻执行国家标准的过程中,旅游资源的内涵及其类型不同程度上出现了外延拓展的倾向。实际上,旅游资源是游憩需求变化与科技进步的函数。基于生态文明的视角,对旅游资源的内涵及其外延展开进一步的学术讨论,对促进旅游业发育成为战略性支柱产业和人民群众满意的现代服务业,具有重要的理论价值和实践意义。