Towards a need-oriented location selection approach : micro computer application of the location-allocation method in Nakhon Ratchasima province | |
| Author | Hashimoto, Toru |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no. HS-87-02 |
| Subject(s) | Social service, Rural--Thailand--Nakhon Ratchasima Offices--Location--Thailand--Nakhon Ratchasim Microcomputers |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Many developing countries are in the process of selecting new locations for providing basic public and social services to rural populations. These location decisions are critically important for development , because large numbers of t he population are in rural areas and their transportation and communication systems are of ten poorly developed and sometimes costly to use for lower income population. So there is an urgent need to establish an efficient strategy for selecting the locations of service facilities which reflects the people's "needs " . More often than not , planning based on the standard central place theory results in failure due to its inability to satisfy the "needs" of the people. At the same time there are various constraints which prevent planners from using optimal location mode ls, even though they have t he potential to reflect t he needs of the people in their defined objectives. This study aims at finding out what the people's real "needs " are in terms of physical accessibility to health care services and at assessing the feasibility of the micro computer application of location-allocation based upon defined objective function s and data availability. Several kinds of field surveys , including the interview surveys of sample households and pick- up bus drivers, data collection of the patient registry records etc., were conducted in the four districts of Nakhon Ratchasima Province. These field surveys revealed the behavioral pattern of the people under the two-level hierarchical health care service system. From the findings t he max1m1z1ng attendance model of location- allocation was formulated. The main feature of this model is that it does not simply allocate t he demands to the nearest health care service facility; instead , the demands are allocated to the higher level and the lower level facilities according to the difference of the level of service which they render. After the formulation of the model, it was compared with two other types of location- allocation models, p-median and set - covering models, by locating a certain number of two-level health care service facilities. The main characteristics of the three models and their limitations were examined and compared. Data availability and the predictive capacities of the model s were investigated. Furthermore , the effectiveness of the application of the location-allocation method to the selection of the locations of public service facilities, in a situation in which a trade-off be tween efficiency and equity or the other objectives is unavoidable , was examined and discussed. Based on t he study experiences , suggestions are mainly made concerning the improvement of the location-allocation method f or the further practical applications in the various planning needs and necessary research for the improvement of the method. |
| Year | 1987 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Engineering and Technology (SET) |
| Department | Other Field of Studies (No Department) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Human Settlement (HS) |
| Chairperson(s) | Guimaraes, Joao P. C. |
| Examination Committee(s) | Demaine, Harvey ;Kammeier, Hans Detlef |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | The Keidanren (Federation of Economic Organization), Japan |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1987 |