Network Location Problems: Aggregation and Approximation

当新设施必须位于路网等网络上时，由于设施之间的旅行或运输，新设施与现有设施之间的网络距离很重要，就会出现网络定位问题。其他感兴趣的网络包括空中走廊或海上走廊网络、河网或电网。这类问题在城市、区域大规模发生。或者在地理环境中，可能有成千上万（或更多）的现有设施，在这种情况下，通常将现有设施聚集在一起，例如，通过单个位置表示邮政编码区域内的所有现有设施位置。这种聚合使问题的大小更易于管理，便于数据收集和数据处理，也便于分析。同时，这种聚合引入了错误，并导致解决了一个近似的问题，而不是感兴趣的实际问题。目前很少有理论来做聚合，或评估聚合的结果。大多数方法都是基于实验或计算研究。这是一个发展理论以改进聚合方法的项目。//这个项目有可能大大提高解决在我们复杂的社会中日益出现的重要设施规划问题的能力

Network location problems occur when new facilities must be located on a network such as a road network, and the network distances between new and existing facilities are important, due to travel or transport between facilities. Other networks of interest include air corridor or sea corridor networks, river networks, or electrical networks. Such problems occur on a large scale in urban, regional. or geographic contexts, where there may be literally hundreds of thousands (or more) of existing facilities, in which case it is common to aggregate existing facilities, e.g., represent all the existing facility locations within a zip code area by a single location. This aggregation makes the size of the problem more manageable for data collection and data processing purposes, as well as for purposes of analysis. At the same time, this aggregation introduces errors, and results in an approximating problem being solved instead of the actual problem of interest. Currently there is very little theory for doing aggregation, or for evaluating the results of aggregation. Most approaches are based on experimentation or computational studies. This is a project to develop theory to improve the means available for doing aggregation. The project has the potential to enhance greatly the ability to solve important facility planning problems that occur increasingly in our complex society.//