Fuzzy and simulated annealing on site location problems

This paper addresses multiple objective site location problems in which there is imprecision in the constraints. The focus is on how imprecision can be dealt within fuzzy sets and then the simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is proposed, as a flexible and formalism independent tool, for solving linear and/or non-linear fuzzy site location problems. An illustrative example of a fuzzy multi-facility location problem for deciding the best location for two new police stations within a city is presented. The example is formalized both as a linear and as a non-linear problem in order to discuss the suitability of the proposed approach.