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Obstacle‐limited service coverage: A new geospatial approach
Author(s) -
Hong Insu,
Murray Alan T.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
transactions in gis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.721
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9671
pISSN - 1361-1682
DOI - 10.1111/tgis.12593
Subject(s) - obstacle , geospatial analysis , drone , service (business) , computer science , representation (politics) , aerial survey , cover (algebra) , operations research , transport engineering , geography , engineering , cartography , business , mechanical engineering , genetics , archaeology , marketing , politics , political science , law , biology
Abstract Service coverage is a crucial component of spatial decision‐making involving facility siting. Determining coverage requires knowledge about travel behavior and accessibility across a region, as well as supporting methods of measurement and derivation when actual travel cannot necessarily be observed. When service is provided using vehicles that move freely without the restriction posed by roads (e.g., airplanes, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles/drones, boats, ships, and submarines), straight‐line travel is regularly assumed. However, this common assumption is often violated by geographical obstructions, resulting in overestimated service coverage. To date, no methods have been developed capable of accounting for obstacle‐limited service coverage. Existing methods either completely ignore obstructions or crudely estimate impacts on travel. In this research, we develop a novel method, ESP‐Cover, capable of deriving accurate obstacle‐limited coverage without introducing representation errors. A location siting problem involving drone‐based package delivery is presented to highlight the necessity of explicitly accounting for obstacles in system design. The assessment results demonstrate the importance of accurate derivation of the obstacle‐limited coverage for spatial decision‐making and the accuracy of the ESP‐Cover method in coverage derivation.