An Optimization-Based Study on the Redeployment of a Secondary School Network

João Teixeira, António Antunes and Dominique Peeters
Additional contact information
João Teixeira: Catholic University of Portugal, Figueira da Foz, Portugal
António Antunes: Civil Engineering Department, University of Coimbra—Polo 2, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal

Environment and Planning B, 2007, vol. 34, issue 2, 296-315

Abstract: In this paper we report the results of a study on secondary school planning made within the framework of Coimbra's Educational Charter. Coimbra is a medium-sized municipality of 320 km 2 and 150000 inhabitants located in the center-littoral region of Portugal. The planning problem addressed in the study consisted of defining the location, type, and size of the schools that should integrate Coimbra's secondary school network in 2015, given, first, the excess of aggregate school capacity that currently characterizes the municipality, and, second, the change in school typology that needs to be implemented as a consequence of a recent reorganization of the Portuguese educational system. This problem was analyzed with a discrete facility-location model and considers decisions both of closing existing schools and of opening new schools. The model is a variant of the well-known p -median model, which aims at maximizing the accessibility of students to schools, with constraints on maximum and minimum capacity occupation that make model solutions lose the single assignment and closest assignment properties. As these are desirable properties in a public-facility planning context, they are enforced with explicit constraints. The results obtained through the model are discussed from the standpoint of the trade-off between school accessibility improvements and school network changes.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/b31173 (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: An optimization-based study on the redeployment of a secondary school network (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirb:v:34:y:2007:i:2:p:296-315

DOI: 10.1068/b31173

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning B
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().