Multi-Service Facility Location Models

The multi-service facility (MSF) concept proposes the co-location of a range of human services under a single roof. Thus, for example, services for preschoolers, teens, and seniors might be co-located within a joint facility. MSFs are a response to economies of scale; co-location reduces the monetary costs of providing a variety of services. Yet, the spatial distributions of different societal groups are different within a city – an MSF system will not provide optimum geographical accessibility to individual groups. We introduce two p-median based location–allocation models that trade off the fixed costs of providing services and opening facilities with the travel costs of three societal groups. We observe that some mixes of single- and multi-service facilities can provide efficient service systems without unduly compromising the accessibility needs of individual groups.