A multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for facility dispersion under conditions of spatial uncertainty

Abstract

Avoiding concentration or saturation of activities is fundamental in many environmental and urban planning contexts. Examples include dispersing retail and restaurant outlets, sensitivity to impacts in forest utilization, spatial equity of waste disposal, ensuring public safety associated with noxious facilities, and strategic placement of military resources, among others. Dispersion models have been widely applied to ensure spatial separation between activities or facilities. However, existing approaches rely on deterministic approaches that ignore issues of spatial data uncertainty, which could lead to poor decision making. To address data uncertainty issues in dispersion modelling, a multi-objective approach that explicitly accounts for spatial uncertainty is proposed, enabling the impacts of uncertainty to be evaluated with statistical confidence. Owing to the integration of spatial uncertainty, this dispersion model is more complex and computationally challenging to solve. In this paper we develop a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to address the computational challenges posed. The proposed heuristic incorporates problem-specific spatial knowledge to significantly enhance the capability of the evolutionary algorithm for solving this problem. Empirical results demonstrate the performance superiority of the developed approach in supporting facility and service planning.

Keywords:

• spatial uncertainty
• dispersion
• evolutionary algorithm
• anti-covering location problem

Acknowledgements

The first author would like to acknowledge support through the 2012–13 Benjamin H. Stevens Graduate Fellowship in Regional Science as well as an Arizona State University Graduate College Completion Fellowship. Also, this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants 0924001 and 0922737. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.