Probabilistic Distance, Capacity Clustering Location Model of a Semi-Obnoxious Facility, a Real Case of Tafo, Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

The collection of solid waste from third class communities in most devel-oping countries is by skip containers, however, the location of these facilities has been done arbitrary without any mathematical considerations as to the number of customers the facility is serving, the distance one has to travel to access it and thereby making some of these residences to dump their refuse in gutters, streams and even burn them. In this paper we proposed an improved probabilistic distance, capacity clustering location model which takes into consideration the weight of solid waste from a customer and the capacity of the skip container to locate the skip container to serve a required number of customers based on the capacity constraint of the container. The model was applied on a real world situation and compared with the existing practice in terms of average distance customers had to travel to access the facility. Our results gave a well shorter average travel distance by customers, gave a number of skip containers needed in an area based on their waste generation per capita.