Facility Centers in Rural Areas: Concept, Development, Effect on Habitational Accessibility and Facility Crowdedness, and Policy Strategies for Resource Allocation

Abstract This article discusses the concept of facility center development by identifying locations for colocating multiple facility types so as to access several facilities at a single location. This concept maximizes accessibility and reduces travel costs for individuals with multiple trip purposes. The appropriateness of facility center locations are evaluated with two parameters: (1) habitation accessibility to facility centers using the two-step-floating-catchment-area (2SFCA), method, and (2) facility center crowdedness using the inverted two-step-floating-catchment-area (i2SFCA) method. This study uses both 2SFCA and i2SFCA methods concurrently to get perception of quality of service provided and received. Considering two facilities such as a health care center and a high school for spatial planning of facility centers, the proposed methodology is analyzed for two cases. In the first case, it is assumed that no facility exists in the study area and in the second case, the existing locations of health care centers and high schools are considered for analysis. The proposed methodology is applied in Jhunjhunu—a district in Rajasthan, India—as a case study. The discussed policy strategy would help with resource allocation in a phased manner for new facility development or capacity augmentation of existing facilities, and thus would improve the quality of rural citizens’ lives.