This paper deals with an approximate approach to the p-median problem. Large instances of the p-median problem can be often met when a real public service system is designed and the discomfort of its customers is minimized. If a large instance of the p-median problem is described by a location-allocation model, then the size of a model often exceeds the acceptable limit for available optimizati...

Regarding the location of a facility, the presumption in the widely used p-median model is that the customer opts for the shortest route to the nearest facility. However, this assumption is problematic on free markets since the customer is presumed to gravitate to a facility by the distance to and the attractiveness of it. The recently introduced gravity p-median model offers an extension to th...

The hierarchical hub covering facility location problems are applied to distribution systems, transportation, waste disposal, treatment services, emergency services and remote communication. The problems attempt to determine the location of service providers' facilities at different levels and specify their linking directions in order to reduce costs and to establish an appropriate condition in...

In this paper we present two new approaches for finding good starting solutions to the planar p-median problem. Both methods rely on a discrete approximation of continuous model that restricts facility locations given set demand points. The first method adapts phase greedy random construction algorithm proposed minimum sum squares clustering second one implements simple descent procedure based ...