Minimum covering criterion for obnoxious facility location on a network

The objective of this article was to find a location of a new facility on a network so that the total number (weight) of nodes within a prespecified distance R is minimized. This problem is applicable when locating an obnoxious facility such as garbage dumps, nuclear reactors, prisons, and military installations. The paper includes an analysis of the problem, identification of special cases where the problem is easily solved, an algorithm to solve the problem in general, and a sensitivity analysis of R.