Location-allocation on congested networks

Abstract This paper deals with location-allocation decisions in networks under conditions of congestion, i.e. taking into consideration the possible arrival of calls for service while no server is available. The problem is to find simultaneously the optimal districting policy which determines how a region should be partitioned into separate service areas, and the optimal locations of facilities to house the service units. An alternate location and allocation solution improvement procedure is developed to combine an existing location algorithm of a single mobile service unit [3] with an existing districting heuristic for two servers [5]. The 2-server districting heuristic is further extended to treat the general case of m servers, and combined with the location algorithm for a single server it forms a general location-allocation heuristic for n nodes and m servers.