Optimizing Spatial Location and Service Capacity of New Schools Toward Maximum Equity in the Distribution of Educational Resources
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 149, Issue 3
Abstract
Educational facilities are an important part of public service facilities. The scientific planning of educational facilities is conducive to the optimal allocation of educational resources and the equalization of educational services. In view of the insufficient supply and uneven spatial distribution of urban educational service facilities, this study adopted an improved two-step optimization method to maximize the equality of school accessibility by optimizing the spatial location and service capacity of urban primary schools. First, the improved p-median model was constructed, and the Teitz–Bart algorithm was used to solve the model to site new primary schools. Second, a quadratic programming method was used to optimize the service capacity of new primary schools. Finally, the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method was used to analyze and evaluate the accessibility of population centers to schools before and after the site selection and service capacity optimization of new schools. The results show that the improved two-step optimization approach can effectively determine the best locations and service capacity of new schools to improve the spatial accessibility of schools and realize the fair distribution of educational resources.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province (Grant Number 222300420131), the Key Scientific Research Projects of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province (Grant Number 21A170006), the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Ministry of Education (Grant Number 20YJC790017), and the General Project of Humanities and Social Sciences Research in Henan Province Universities (Grant Number 2022-ZZJH-281). We are grateful to the editor and the anonymous referees for their useful comments and suggestions that considerably improved the earlier versions of this paper.
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 20, 2022
Accepted: Apr 7, 2023
Published online: Jun 6, 2023
Published in print: Sep 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Nov 6, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Buildings
- Construction engineering
- Construction management
- Distribution functions
- Education
- Engineering fundamentals
- Facilities (by type)
- Mathematical functions
- Mathematics
- Models (by type)
- Optimization models
- Practice and Profession
- Project management
- Public buildings
- Resource allocation
- School (K-12)
- School buildings
- Spatial distribution
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
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