The location of fire stations in a rural environment: A case study

In this paper an application of location-allocation modelling to an emergency service is presented. This study differs in two aspects from earlier work because it covers two neglected fields: (1) it is concerned with a rural environment whereas most case studies are about urban areas; (2) it is a comparison of the performance of several models instead of using only one. Efficiency as well as equity are taken into account. The main conclusions are about the issues of the choice of an appropriate model from 3 candidate models, the stability of the solutions with respect to variations in the number of facilities, the quasi-nested structure of some solutions, and the high cost of introducing equity.