| Abstract |
This project looks at a class of location-allocation problem with immobile servers, stochastic demand and congestion, which arises in several planning contexts: location of emergency medical clinics, preventive health care centres, police stations, and fire stations; location of refuse collection and disposal centres; telecommunication network design; location of bank branches and automated teller machines; internet mirror site location, among others. The problem seeks to simultaneously locate facilities, equip them with appropriate capacity, and allocate stochastic customer demand to these facilities such that total cost, which consists of the fixed cost of opening facilities with sufficient capacity, the variable cost of serving users, and the queuing delay costs, is minimized. |