TITLE:
Combining Geographic Information Systems for Transportation and Mixed Integer Linear Programming in Facility Location-Allocation Problems
AUTHORS:
Silvia Maria Santana Mapa, Renato da Silva Lima
KEYWORDS:
Geographic Information Systems for Transportation, Location-Allocation Problems, Mixed Integer Linear Programming, Transportation, TransCAD®
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Software Engineering and Applications,
Vol.7 No.10,
September
24,
2014
ABSTRACT: In this study, we aimed to
assess the solution quality for location-allocation problems from facilities
generated by the software TransCAD®, a Geographic Information System
for Transportation (GIS-T). Such facilities were obtained after using two
routines together: Facility Location and Transportation Problem, when compared
with optimal solutions from exact mathematical models, based on Mixed Integer
Linear Programming (MILP), developed externally for the GIS. The models were
applied to three simulations: the first one proposes opening factories and
customer allocation in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil; the second involves a
wholesaler and a study of location and allocation of distribution centres for
retail customers; and the third one involves the location of day-care centers
and allocation of demand (0 - 3 years old children). The results showed that
when considering facility capacity, the MILP optimising model presents results
up to 37% better than the GIS and proposes different locations to open new
facilities.