A GIS-Based Spatial Decision Support System for Facility Location Planning in Nigeria

Abstract Public facilities are to be located optimally in the interest of society. In Nigeria, public facilities' locations are largely influenced by administrative constraints and politics, rather than efficiency and equity. This practice limits access, most especially, in rural communities where the population is dispersed. Studies on efficiency and equity in access to public health facilities focused on urban centres. The aim of this study, therefore, is to advance the understanding of the application of the spatial decision support system (SDSS) to evaluate efficiency and equity in access to public facilities in rural regions. The study used Ogun State, Nigeria as a case. The data used include the population and coordinates of the location of the settlements, coordinates of the location of health facilities and the transport networks. This study showed that 38.5% of settlements do not have access to primary care and the application of the p-median model showed that the efficiency of the existing location of health facilities can be improved by 40.6%. Application of the maximal covering location model showed that the existing maximum travel distance of 26.3km can be reduced. It can be reduced for the sake of equity to 9.9 km. This study demonstrated ways to develop evaluative tools for analyzing the distribution of public facilities in Nigeria. It is suggested that planners in rural regions of other developing countries can adopt these techniques and tools to make their location decisions more logical. Keywords: Geographic Information System, Public Health Facilities, Spatial Decision Support System, Location Efficiency, Location Equity.