Network Location Problems: Aggregation and Approximation

当新设施必须位于公路网等网络上，并且由于设施之间的交通或交通原因，新设施和现有设施之间的网络距离非常重要时，就会出现网络选址问题。其他感兴趣的网络包括空中走廊或海上走廊网络、河流网络或电力网络。这类问题在城市、区域范围内大规模发生。或地理环境，其中可能确实存在数十万(或更多)现有设施，在这种情况下，聚集现有设施是常见的，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。这种聚合使得问题的大小更易于管理，以便进行数据收集和数据处理，以及进行分析。同时，这种聚合引入了错误，并导致解决了近似问题，而不是实际感兴趣的问题。目前，很少有关于进行聚合或评估聚合结果的理论。大多数方法都是基于实验或计算研究。这是一个开发理论以改进可用于进行聚合的方法的项目。该项目有可能极大地提高解决我们复杂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.//