Mathematics Colloquium: Equitable Facility Location with Facility Penalties

Speaker:  Daphne Skipper, US Naval Academy

Title:  Equitable Facility Location with Facility Penalties

Abstract :  Economists developed equally distributed equivalents (EDEs) as metrics that more accurately capture the experience of a population than the population mean. For example, a heavily unequal distribution of incomes has an EDE that is below the mean, offsetting the impact of large incomes that are not representative of the general population. The Kolm-Pollak EDE has been identified in the Environmental Justice literature as an ideal metric for comparing distributions of environmental risks, such as exposure to pollution. We apply this nonlinear metric to distances in facility location optimization to achieve optimal urban planning solutions that balance overall good (mean travel distance) with improving the situations of those who must travel the farthest. A penalty in the objective function prevents selection of less-desirable locations unless they improve access by x meters. Our models scale to the largest cities in the United States, but are inexact in that they require parameter approximations. We consider the impact of these approximations both analytically and computationally. 

Time:  Friday, January 26, 3:30pm – 4:20pm

Place:  Exploratory Hall, room 4106

Zoom and In-person