THE EVALUATION OF ACCESSIBILITY TO HOSPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE AT REGIONAL SCALE BY USING GIS SPACE ANALYSIS MODELS: THE NORTH-WEST REGION, ROMANIA

The Evaluation of Accessibility to Hospital Infrastructure at Regional Scale by Using GIS Space Analysis Models: the North-West Region, Romania. Easy access of the population to hospital infrastructure represents one of the main preoccupations of local and national authorities in the attempt to increase the degree of deliverance of quality medical services. The analysis of territorial distribution of various hospital categoriescity, clinical, teaching, emergency hospitals- has revealed some areas of deficit in what regards the availability of various types of medical assistance. Identifying the areas of deficit from the point of view of accessibility to hospital infrastructure is carried out by means of a GIS model of space analysis (Cost Surface Modeling type) based on the calculation of access time from any location in the territory to the nearest hospital taking into consideration the vector databases (access ways, hospitals etc.), assignment (speed of motion on access ways, hospital type) and raster (access time)

Spatial Analysis for Equitable Accessibility in Social Infrastructure Planning

Equitable access can be taken as an indicator of good social infrastructure planning. Due to the inevitable spatial separation between demand and supply, inequality in accessibility has an inherently spatial dimension. An innovative approach has been developed and tested in this study. The proposed approach is less computationally intensive and overcomes some of the disadvantages of conventional approaches. It is based on the average distance of residents to the nearest service / facility by small area geography. It will support rapid assessments of inequalities and ‘what-if’ analyses in a planning context

Emergency services site selection: The integration of analytic hierarchy process and geographic information systems

Bu araştırmada itfaiye istasyonlarının yeni yerlerinin belirlenmesi aşamasında gözönüne alınabilecek ölçütler saptanmış, Analitik Hiyerarşi Yöntemi (AHY) kavramından yararlanılarak herbir ölçüt için ağırlıklar belirlenmiş ve belirlenen ölçüt ağırlıklarına dayanarak Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemleri (CBS) ortamında en uygun yer analizi yapılmıştır. Ayrıca oluşturulan modelin duyarlılığını test etmek amacıyla yine CBS ortamında duyarlılık analizleri gerçekleştirilmiştir. Gerçekleştirilen bu çalışmalar ile karar vericilere özellikle itfaiye istasyonları gibi acil durum servislerinin en uygun yerlerinin belirlenmesinde verecekleri kararlarda destek sağlayacak bir sistem üzerine odaklanılmıştır. Çalışmada izlenen adımlar şu şekilde özetlenmektedir: Çözülecek problemin/amacın belirlenmesi; itfaiye istasyonlarının yeni yerlerinin belirlenmesinde etkili olası ölçütlerin belirlenmesi; verilerin elde edilmesi, hazırlanması ve düzenlenerek CBS ortamına aktarılması; parça parça olan veri gruplarının bir çalışma bölgesi oluşturacak şekilde düzenlenmesi ve herbir ölçüte (tabaka) karşılık gelen verilerin raster veri formatında betimlenmesi; raster veri gruplarının sınıflandırılması; Analitik Hiyerarşi Yöntemi (AHY) yardımıyla tercih matrislerinin oluşturulması; iki karar verici grubun görüşlerine dayanarak oluşturulan tercih matrisinden yararlanarak özdeğer ve özvektörlerin hesaplanması; AHY’nin sonuçların sentezlenmesi özelliğinden faydalanarak ilgili herbir ölçüt için önem/ağırlık değerlerinin belirlenmesi; ölçütlere ağırlıklı toplama işlemi uygulanarak sonuç raster verisinin CBS ortamında elde edilmesi; oluşturulan modelin duyarlılığının (CBS) ortamında test edilmesi ve yeni itfaiye istasyon yerlerinin belirlenmesinde karar vericilere destek sağlayan bir sistemin önerilmesi.  Anahtar Kelimeler: CBS, analitik hiyerarşi yöntemi, yer seçimi, çok ölçütlü karar verme.In the early 1980s Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software emerged as a new information processing technology offering unique capabilities of automating, managing, and analysing a variety of spatial data. Many applications of GIS developed over the last decade provided information necessary for the decision-making in diverse areas including natural resource management, regional planning, and disaster management. Two perspectives on developing better decision support capabilities of GIS can be identified, one based on analytical problem solving as a centrepiece of Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) and another based on integration of GIS and specialized analytical models. According to first perspective, SDSS should offer modelling, optimization, and simulation functions required to generate, evaluate, recommend, and test the sensitivity or problem solution strategies. These capabilities are essential to solving semi-structured spatial decision-making problems. The second perspective on improving the decision support capabilities focuses on the expansion of GIS descriptive, prescriptive, and predictive capabilities by integrating GIS software with other statistical software and analytical models. According to this view, mapping, query, and spatial modelling functions of GIS can provide data display at different scales, preprocessing, and data input for environmental and statistical models. The general objective of Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) is to assist the decision-maker (DM) in selecting the ?best? alternative from the number of feasible choice-alternatives under the presence of multiple choice criteria and diverse criterion priorities. The problem of multicriterion choice in decision making is the paramount challenge faced by individiuals, public and private corporations. The nature of challenge is two-fold: How to identify choice alternatives satisfying the objectives of parties involved in the decision-making process? How to order the set of feasible choice alternatives to identify the most preferred alternative? The challenge of multicriterion choice can be attributed to many spatial decision-making problems involving search and location/allocation of resources. These problems, often analysed in (GIS), include location/site selection for: service facilities, retail outlets, critical areas for specific resource management, and emergency service locations where are key locations for effective emergency management. In this study, the criteria and its priorities/weights that should be considered for finding optimal locations of fire stations are determined; and multi-criteria site analysis is conducted based on mentioned criteria weights in (GIS) environment. Moreover, in order to test the sensitivity and robustness of the model developed, a sensitivity analysis is performed based on the combination of the criterion weights by using (GIS) capabilities. With these analyses performed, it is focused on the creating the model that supports decision makers in decision-making for finding the optimal locations of fire stations. In this study, these steps are followed: Definition of the problem/objective (determining the optimal locations of fire stations); determining the potential criteria in finding the optimal locations of fire stations; data collection and preparation and transfer to (GIS) environment; creation of raster data sets representing the regionalised criteria; classification of raster data sets; establishment of preference matrix, assigning preference values to the relevant criteria by using the pairwise comparison feature of Analytic Hiyerarchy Process (AHP); determination of criteria weights by calculating eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the preference matrix which evaluated by two decision maker group; determining the criteria priorities/weights values by using the synthesis of priorities and calculating the overall composite weights; calculating the result raster (suitability map for potential fire stations) as a weighted summation of all criteria raster data sets; conducting the sensitivity analyses in (GIS) environment in order to test the sensitiveness and robustness of the model developed; offering a system that supports decision makers in determining the optimal locations of fire stations. The integration of the (AHP) and (GIS) combines decision support methodology with powerful visualisation and analysing capabilities which should considerably facilitate finding optimal locations of fire stations and this process improves the decision making in emergency management. Keywords: GIS, Analytic hierarchy process, site selection, multi-criteria decision making

Metodología para el análisis de accesibilidad a los recursos sanitarios : el caso de Catalunya

En la planificación de servicios públicos, como los servicios sanitarios, resulta útil poder disponer de técnicas objetivas para el análisis y la cuantificación de su adecuación a la distribución de la población en el territorio. Con este objetivo, y con la colaboración entre el Departamento de Salud de la Generalitat de Cataluña, y el Departamento de Geografía y el Centro de Investigación Ecológica y Aplicaciones Forestales (CREAF) de la UAB, se llevó a cabo, entre los años 2007 y 2008, un estudio de la accesibilidad a los centros sanitarios públicos de Cataluña, mediante la utilización de herramientas de cálculo de rutas óptimas, integradas en un SIG. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto el interesante potencial de la metodología utilizada en la planificación territorial de los servicios sanitarios y los principales puntos a mejorar en términos de accesibilidad de la población a los recursos sanitarios.In the planning of public services such as health services, it is useful to have techniques for objective analysis and quantification of its suitability to the population distribution in the territory. With this purpose, and the collaboration between the Department of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia, and the Department of Geography and the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) at UAB, a study of accessibility to public health centers of Catalonia, through the use of tools for optimal routing, integrated into a GIS, was carried out during the years 2007 and 2008. The results show the interesting potential of the methodology used in the planning of health services and key points to improve in terms of accessibility of people to health resources