Sequential location-allocation of public facilities in one- and two-dimensional space: Comparison of several policies

The present paper examines the sequential location-allocation problems of public facilities in one- and two-dimensional space under several policies. It is shown that the efficiency loss due to the adoption of a myopic policy is not so large, contrary to common belief, provided that the efficiency can be measured by the total transportation cost of users and by the total capacity of facilities. If the total serving area is ‘sufficiently narrow’, then the spatial allocations of optimal solutions in two-dimensional problems can be closely approximated by those in one-dimensional problems.