Optimizing fire station locations for Istanbul metropolitan municipality

The purpose of this paper is to provide a guideline to the authorities of the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul in their attempt to specify the locations of the fire stations that should be built in addition to the current configuration, in order to increase the efficiency of the fire stations. For this purpose, a mathematical model is developed to find the locations of new fire stations so as to increase the service speed and maximize the coverage area of the fire departments. The data used as the inputs of the model are retrieved from a geographical information system (GIS). The improvements that will result from this new configuration are analysed. Variants of the model are solved as what-if scenarios where an unlimited budget, relocation of all fire stations from scratch, and finally solving with and without weight on cultural and historical treasures are considered.